Education Minister Berhanu Nega (Prof.) has introduced a directive compelling university students to sit for exit examinations before completing undergraduate studies. It is a decision that brings apprehension in the high learning community as many are reluctant to respond.

Berhanu hopes to see the new requirement raising the quality of education and improving the effectiveness of higher learning institutions. Students will have three opportunities to sit for the exit exams beginning in October this year.

Berhanu is one of three opposition leaders appointed to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s (PhD) cabinet last year. Last month, he was re-elected as the head of the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (Ezema) party. He is responsible for a federal agency with a 64.7 billion Br budget this fiscal year, claiming 13pc. The education sector takes the largest share of this year’s federal budget after debt servicing, defence, and roads.

Tertiary education has come a long way since the opening of the University College of Addis Abeba (later Haile Selassie I University and then Addis Abeba University) in 1950.

In the past two decades, close to 30 state-run higher learning institutions were established, boosting the total number of public universities to 42. These institutions enrol over 350,000 students, most of whom are undergraduate students.

Although officials have been trying to accommodate the rapid expansion in the number of public universities and the surging number of students, doubts over quality, particularly in the newly-opened public universities, loom over. Many private colleges and universities that have sprung up over the past two decades share a similar reputation. Private schools have repeatedly been subject to rebukes from the federal agency overseeing higher education quality.

Both public and private colleges are accountable to the Education Ministry’s new rule. Close to 100,000 students graduate from higher learning institutions each year. Undergraduate students will sit for the exit exams in their final semester, held twice a year.

Emebet Mulgeta (PhD), academic vice president at Addis Abeba University, told Fortune that the University’s administrators are discussing the matter but declined to comment further.

Representatives of other higher learning institutions seemed reluctant to accept the new rules. Several declined to comment.

A federal agency run by Dilamo Oteri, the National Educational Assessment & Examination Agency, will be tasked with administering the exit exams – from registering students to preparing the tests and certifying results. Established 64 years ago, the Agency conducts nationwide educational assessments for students matriculating from the eighth and 12th grades. Close to 1.5 million of these students sat for the exams last year.

The directive’s authors believe the exams will measure students’ cognitive content and aptitude, administered in person or virtually. Students sit for these exams more than once, and those attending private colleges will pay fees.

The Ethiopian Education & Research Network (EthERNet) conducts the exams virtually. Zelalem Assefa (PhD) was appointed in 2018 to serve as the Network’s director, established in 2009 to oversee programmes such as SchoolNet and WoredaNet.