Hawassa University HU Hosts IQE Workshop
HU hosts a workshop, “Internationalization for Quality Education”.
HU hosts a workshop with a theme “Internationalization for Quality Education” in collaboration with Ministry of Education at the main campus AU Hall on August 18 – 19, 2022.
Dr. Eng. Fisiha Getachew, Vice President for Academic Affairs of HU, said in his welcoming speech that the university is working on ensuring quality education and promoting relevance of its academic programs in addition to research activities. He pointed out that Hawassa university has come so far as hosting more than 35 thousand students enrolled in 300 plus academic programs in the undergraduate, graduate and medical specialty and sub-specialty trainings from a humble beginning of 217 students enrolled in agricultural fields of study at diploma level 46 years back. He also remarked that HU has a longstanding history of working with international partners because of the endless efforts of its dedicated founding professors, and said we can work to farther their contributions for a better future. Dr. Fisiha finally expressed his gratitude to the Ministry of Education for choosing HU to host this very timely and relevant workshop on behalf of the university and wished all participants a fruitful time.
Dr. Idossa Terfassa, Head of the Scholarship and Internationalization Desk at MoE, stated in his key note speech that while we still work on increasing access and ensuring equity in higher education, promoting relevance and enhancing and assuring quality are the central foci of our policy. “Thus”, he said, “scholarship and internationalization desk has been one of the newly launched structures in ministry of education as part of the reforms underway to rectify the need of meeting national and international developments and the labour market demands”.
Dr. Idossa pointed out that internationalization influences policy makers on developing the level of transparency and mobilization between national education systems, enabling and simplifying the mobility of people and integrating university degrees, grading systems etc. and as we keep trying, we are planning to shift the paradigm to internationalization through accreditation. He also explained the importance and benefits of accreditation to the participants.
Representatives from more than 40 Ethiopian public universities have attended the workshop which has focused on sharing experiences and training on internationalization for higher education institutions with its contribution to quality of education on this two-day long workshop. On the first day, three of the first-generation universities, Hawassa University, Jimma University and University of Gondar, have presented their experiences with challenges and opportunities related to internationalization, a presentation of an innovative project from HU named BLENDOPEDIA, and discussions were held.
The second day was for training on internationalization delivered by a veteran Professor from UK, Prof. Getachew Engda focusing on how to make things work in the present competitive world and dynamic universe dominated by technology. The workshop was finally concluded with a campus tour at HU main campus.
