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A tender for the construction of the project will be floated next month

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

Wollo University, one of the 50 public universities in the country, announced plans to construct two campuses for an estimated cost of 382 million Br.

Each facility will have 450Sqm classrooms, four-story offices, labs, lecture rooms and teaching facilities. The office blocks, which will each rest on 380Sqm, are equipped with CCTV cameras, internet connections, lifts and parking areas.

“The construction aims to enhance the teaching-learning process and create a good and comfortable research environment,” said Abate Getahun (PhD), president of Wollo University, which has a 1.1 billion Br budget for the current fiscal year.




The construction of the two campuses, which will be located in Kombolcha and Dessie, will start in the coming January. Expected to be functional within a year, each campus will have 96 classrooms with the capacity of hosting 1,500 students. The tender for the construction of the projects will be floated in the next month, according to Moges Ambaw, construction director at the University.

Two consultants participated on the project, Yohannes Abbay Consulting Architects & Engineers and Lacomelza Enterprise, the former of which worked on projects such as Adama Science & Technology University, Gode Airport Terminal and the Amhara Credit & Saving Institution.




Situated in the South Wollo Zone of Amhara Regional State, Wollo University’s main campus is located in Dessie, a city with a population of 300,000. Its other campus is located 26Km southeast of the Dessie campus in the city of Kombolcha, which has a population of 90,000.


The two campuses currently have 28,000 students and have welcomed 4,500 new ones this academic year. Thus far 30,000 students have graduated from the two campuses, which provide 86 different types of programmes.

Aside from the planned campuses, the University, which has 1,126 lecturers, 106 of which are PhD holders, has 44 other projects in various stages, including the construction of dormitories, cafeteria renovations and maintenance work.

Across all universities, during the last academic year, 873,000 students were studying for their first degree at public universities, a number that is expected to grow to 1.1 million in the current academic year. Social sciences and humanities departments have the highest number of post-graduate students, with 30.8pc of the total post-graduate enrollment, followed by business and economics departments.


Tamiru Delelegn, lecturer at Bahir Dar University's College of Educational & Behavioral Science, believes that the new infrastructure will have a positive impact on improving the quality of education.

"The facilities will increase the teacher's commitment and effort," said Tamiru. "For students, it'll increase learning motivation. Besides having a large number of classrooms, it will help students get the attention they need from their teacher and to express their opinions."

Education is one of the key areas the government particularly focuses on. For this fiscal year, the federal government allocated 50.6 billion Br, 13pc of its total budget, to the education sector.


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

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