|
The Ministry of Education (MoE) is to construct an
‘Institute of Science’ that annually enrolls close
to 40,000 students in Dukem town, 37Km east of Addis
Abeba.
Following a debate on whether to carry out expansion
in the existing eight universities, or to construct
a brand new institute, the federal government has
chosen the second alternative. This was because the
universities reported that they would collectively
need four billion Birr for expansion.
In a discussion chaired by Sufian Ahmed, minister of
Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) in the
presence of Tefera Walwa, minister of Capacity
Building (MoCB) and Sentayehu Woldemichael (PhD),
minister of Education, Tefera stated that the
government has decided to construct a new institute,
sources disclosed. The theme of the discussion was
about plans by the ministries for the next budget
year and the budgets they would need from the
finance ministry.
The government has decided this year that every
higher institute should enroll 70pc Natural Science
students and 30pc Social Science students. This was
why the universities were requested to consider
undertaking an expansion of their respective
campuses. However, these universities supposedly
came up with an overstated cost, compelling the
government to resort to constructing an autonomous
institute.
There are 13 additional universities currently under
construction. When these are completed, the annual
enrollment capacity of the nation’s universities is
expected to grow from 30,000 to 112,000 students.
The government projects that the construction of
primary up to tertiary educational institutions, as
well as technical and vocational colleges, would
cost it 53.7 billion Br over a five year period. For
the 2008/2009 budget year, the MoE has requested the
finance ministry to grant a nine billion Birr
budget, of which 7.7 billion Birr is from the
government treasury. The Education ministry had
requested a five billion Birr budget one month ago.
However, officials at the MoFED instructed it to
present its budget request together with the
engineering capacity building programme (ecbp), a
German technical support venture that incorporates a
university capacity building programme (ucbp). The
request eventually increased by 80pc to nine
billion.
The MoFED this budget year granted a 1.5 billion
Birr for the MoE, although it requested 2.5 billion
Birr. The budget request for next year is six times
higher than what it was granted this year. The
request is the second highest, next to the Ethiopian
Roads Authority (ERA) request for 12 billion Br.
Both requests combined are greater than this year’s
18.8 billion Br budget allocated for capital
projects.
The cost of the institute in Dukem is expected to be
discussed this week.
|
