The project includes an office building, a four-storey library and a cafeteria

Nov 2 , 2019
By TEMESGEN MULUGETA ( FORTUNE STAFF WRITER )


Bahir Dar University completed the construction of educational facilities for an estimated investment of 430 million Br.

The facilities include a four-story building lying on 10,200Sqm of land. It includes offices, classrooms, lecture halls, seminar rooms, small-sized libraries and meeting rooms. The new construction also includes a four-flour library building and a cafeteria.

The four-storey office and educational building has 29 classrooms that can accommodate 1,757 students in all and six lecture halls, each of which can accommodate 255 students. There are also five seminar rooms and four different small libraries.

The four-story library building that lies on 2,500Sqm can be used by 2,000 students at a time, while the one-storey cafeteria rests on 2,700Sqm and can serve 2,000 students at a time.


“The need for constructing all this infrastructure is to facilitate the learning process for medical doctors,” said Habtamu Sebhatu, physical project office deputy manager at the University that was established by merging Bahir Dar Polytechnic and Bahir Dar Teachers’ College.

Construction began at different times on the facilities that are located in Bahir Dar, Sebat-Amit Kebele, near Felege Tibeb Specialized Referral Hospital, the new medical college of the University. While construction of the office and educational building started four years ago, the cafeteria and the four-storey library began earlier in 2013.


Tekleberhan Ambaye Construction Plc (TACON) constructed the office and educational building. The contractor previously participated in the construction of Bole Lemi Industrial Park.

The cafeteria and the library were built by Yencomad Construction Plc, which started operations in October 1994 and currently employs 1,500 people. The contractor participated in the 64.5Km road project from Modjo to Arerti, in the Oromia and Amhara regional states, respectively.


The consultant for all the projects was the Ethiopian Construction Design & Supervision Works Corporation, which provides services in the areas of water, energy, building, urban, transport, geotechnics and underground works. The Corporation was established in 2015 after the merger of three public enterprises - Water Works Design & Supervision Enterprise (WWDSE), Construction Design and Transport Construction Design.

Education is one of the key areas of focus for the Ethiopian government, which allocated 50.6 billion Br to the sector this year. With 50 public universities and 38 teachers education colleges, the nation had 873,000 students studying for their first degrees in the past academic year.

Bahir Dar University has more than 52,830 students in its 69 undergraduate, 118 masters, and 32 PhD programmes. It also has five colleges, four institutes, two faculties and one school.

Feyisa Mulisa, a lecturer at the University's College of Educational & Behavioral Sciences, believes that the new facility will have a good impact on improving the quality of education.


“But the buildings will be not enough. The University has to insure that they are well equipped with the necessary tools including books and educational equipment,” said Feyissa. “The University also has to work on improving the capacity of teachers. If the focus is only on facilities, then it won't be possible to achieve the aim of providing quality education.”

Bahir Dar University also has ongoing projects including a medical laboratory building, which is 70pc of completed, according to Habtamu.



PUBLISHED ON Nov 02,2019 [ VOL 20 , NO 1018]


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