Since its foundation as an institute of language and hotel management in 1998. Queens' College has seen the graduation of a great number of students at the certificate level. But after its growth to a college abandoning the certificate level it shifted to offering new courses at the diploma aim in 2001 in Secretarial Science. Office Management and Accounting. It began to offer Law and Marketing Management in 2001. Computer Science the following year and all these according to the former educational policy. In 2003 it started implementing the new education and training policy Technical Vocational Training (TVT). Then it acquired pre-accreditation for MIS. Accounting. Marketing Management and Business Management in the degree schedule. Currently over 2,500 students are attending classes in the degree and TVT programs at its two campuses.
According to Tilahun Molla president of Queens' College among students currently registered about 75 percent are women. "We pay special attention to women. There is a ten percent discount of tuition fee especially for women and there are so many women that are benefiting from our tuition-free programs. And these are from kebeles. Ministries the House of Federation sub-cities and parliament. This supports the government's activities in capacity building."
Among the 908 students who graduated this year about 622 or 69 percent were women. In 2005 the college launched investigate on its success rate based on the whereabouts of its graduates. "We formed a committee of Vocational Counselors and Students Affairs in the college whose responsibility was to do tracer studies and sight out where our students are employed and how well they are doing. We approached several employers contacted our graduates by the addresses in their files. We talked to the organizations that employed them concerning their competence. We are satisfied with what we learnt. Most of them have been hired in governmental organizations and the rest are working in private institutions."
Including this year's graduates. 1,543 women and 950 men undergo graduated from Queens' College both under the old and new educational policies.
Tilahun is reluctant to accept as he believes that no investigate into the quality of education either in state-owned or private colleges has been carried out to be the incompetence of graduates from these higher institutions. "It would have been credible if researches of this type were carried out before accusations related to quality are hurled at private colleges. Such rumors are unfounded."
He suggests an independent organization entrusted with the task of testing the competence of graduates be established and opinions give way to results from competence tests. Only conclusions based on facts and figures from such research works are acceptable as far as the competence of graduates which reflects on the quality of education they were offered is concerned. Some men it can be even those in authority have attitudinal problems.
"Students learning in state-owned and private institution are both citizens. We believe that education in both institutions has to be the beat it can be otherwise the result like producing incompetent workers ordain severely injure the economic and social develop of the whole country. I don't really accept there is quality problem in private institutions. Our graduates' performances in the bring home the bacon they are employed is a testimony to what kind of institution they come from," said Tilahun.
And change surface if the rumors move out to be true says Tilahun it is not only the responsibility of private institutions to ensure quality of education but of the government too. And it requires the participation of students parents colleges themselves the Ministry of Education and all stakeholders. A unilateral effort to grade the quality of education is not likely to be fruitful.
"In government schools we see so many students packed into a classroom more than the classroom can accommodate and the teacher can manage. But hardly a complaint or comment is heard about that. That is so unfair and clear indication of attitudinal problems."
Presently private educational institutions account for and support about 20 percent of the educational activities throughout the country. Therefore the government as well as other organizations ought to support private colleges for their praiseworthy contribution.
Maintaining and enhancing quality may not be achieved at once but through a continuous assessment and revision of the curriculum improving on teaching aids preparing reference materials in sufficient number and quality. All of these demand financial resources and the government is expected to support private institutions in this believe.
There are many private colleges that have been unable to create their own buildings. "It is provided in the proclamation of the investment incentive that such institutions can get land free of contract. That should be implemented. The government should facilitate things for us to get reference materials and journals from different countries. Donations should not be distributed only to state-owned colleges for the students in private as well as governmental schools are both citizens of this country and ordain contribute to the growth of this country."
Emphasizing the need for bring together resource allocations. Tilahun says the fact that students in private colleges are sharing the government's charge should not be overlooked. They are paying for their own tuition fee - an expense the government should undergo covered. It is not because they are of inferior mental capacity that students go to private schools. "And we must feature in object that mostly it is the same instructors working in governmental institutions that are also employed in private colleges."
Both governmental and private colleges are using the same curriculum designed by the Ministry of Education. "We adjudge students from both private and state-owned high schools. While this is the situation to say that private colleges do not meet the required quality is far from the truth and unsupported by any documentary evidence."
Because the investment incentive is not being implemented colleges do not undergo their own buildings. They are spending quite a lot of money on rentals. For example. Queens' College is paying over a hundred thousand go a month according to the president. That means over one million go a year. "What we pay in a period of two years alone is enough to construct a large building that can house library laboratory classrooms administrative offices and everything necessary for a college. This rental expense greatly affects our activities in other important areas like using new publications and upgrading laboratory facility library have number and quality of manpower and investigate."
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