Ethiotime1
Addis Ababa May 9/2023(ENA):- A purposeful investment in research and higher education is an engine to expediting growth, especially to ensuring sustainable development goals in Africa, Ministry of Education underscored.
The 21th international conference on Private Higher Education in Africa kicked off today in Addis Ababa in the presence of prominent educators, and researcher from Africa, Asia, Latin America, America and Europe.
The three day conference is taking place under the theme “sustainable development in higher education: Reality or Hype”
Opening the conference, State Minister of Education Samuel Kifle said the purposeful investment in research and higher education would be an engine for growth, especially for sustainable development.
He added that despite unfortunate occurrence in the continent, the expansion of higher education is showing tremendous progress.
At a country level Ethiopia has made efforts to ensure quality education by putting in place vital instruments, he said citing the recently extremely strict university entrance exam carried out for the first in the country.
Contrary to the previous years, the results of the students who took the school leaving examination under the new rigorous exam showed big differences in enhancing the moral of hard working students.
He noted that the ministry acknowledged the contributions that private educational institutions are making to fill the gaps created by limited capacity of public resources in the country.
St. Mary University President, Wondewosen Tamrat said the conference aims to initiate useful dialogue and discussion to strengthen higher education institutions in Africa.
He added that higher education institution should be active participants in the sustainable development goal.
African higher education institutions need to address the challenges the continent is facing by accelerating the implementation of sustainable development and agenda 2063.
The conference is expected to deliberate on issues pertinent to the enhancement of quality education in African institutions of higher learning.
It is also expected to generate policy relevant recommendations from various research papers, panel discussions and reflections under different themes.
The international conference is jointly organized by St. Mary University, the association of African Universities, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Ethiopia’s ministry of education, African Union, International Network for Higher education in Africa (INHEA) and UNESCO.
Initiated by St. Mary’s university in 2003, the conference has been organized on an annual basis for the past two decades aiming at creating a platform for a wide range of actors, educators, policy makers and higher education leaders among others.
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