Seid Mohammed, in his mid-20s, is an assistant lecturer at Wolaita Sodo University. Born and raised in Gonder City, 727Km north of the capital, Seid attended his primary and secondary school in his hometown.

A sixth child to his family, his interest was to study Law. But as the overall point he scored on the University Entrance Examination was low to join the department, he was placed in the field of public relations and advertising at Meqelle University's social science department.

Though it was not his choice, after discussing it with his family, he decided to enroll in and pursue his education and career in public relations and advertising.

Three years of university flew by, and Seid graduated from Meqelle University in 2017 with a GPA of 3.5. Because of his high grades, he was able to quickly find a job at the Ethiopian Leather & Development Institute as a public relations officer.

After working at the Institute for three months, he joined Herald Newspaper, a government-owned English language newspaper, as a journalist where he worked for a year.

At the end of 2018, Seid was able to land a job at Wolaita Sodo University as an assistant lecturer in the department of journalism and communication.

Seid gave a course on public relations theories and practices for freshman students. The three-credit hour course brought him in contact with his class twice a week.

He says he likes his job and enjoys teaching. He also believes he is qualified for the job and that he is good at it.

“I continuously read and update myself,” said Seid.

Seid is one of the 9,000 university lecturers who teach university classes with a bachelor's degree. In the past years more and more bachelor's degree holders were hired as assistant lecturers as the number of universities in the country was continuously increasing.

However, a new education road map prepared by the Ministry of Education, which will govern the Ethiopian education sector for the coming 10 years, is set to curb the practice and requires at least a master's degree to be a lecturer at the higher learning institutions.

The road map, which took three years to prepare, was developed by a team of six pedagogy experts and is expected to replace the existing educational system that has been in place for the last 24 years.

According to the Ministry, 3.5 million people discussed the road map in all regional states, and 17 ministries gave comment.

The research team summarized their 700 pages of research findings into 100 pages and presented it to the public for discussion.

“The new road map is needed, because the existing education policy is out of date and has lots of quality problems,” said Geremew Huluqa (PhD), state minister of Education.

“The new road map helps us to address and solve the decline of the quality of education,” Geremew told Fortune.

The road map suggests 36 new proposals that it believes can transform the current education system.

The education road map covers six thematic areas: pre-primary and primary education, secondary and preparatory education, teacher education and development, higher education, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and policy, governance and leadership.

In the existing system, students spend eight years in primary schools, two years in secondary schools and two years in preparatory schools, but the new road map shuffles this programme. Now students will take a regional exam at the end of grade six and national exams in grades eight and 12.

At the higher education level, the road map raises three-year degree programmes to four.

“The additional year is dedicated to providing common courses like geography and anthropology at the freshman level," said Dechasa Gurmu, communication affairs director at the Ministry of Science & Higher Education.

The new road map also suggests higher education cost-sharing tuition fees be increased from 15pc to 30pc.