Mission story: Teaching at Wollo University
Last month I wrote about the progress of the first mission of the EUDiF project with Wollo University and how that followed my mission for IOM Netherlands three years ago. My first on-site mission together with my three colleagues of the project took place from December 26, 2022 to January 14, 2023. This is the story of that mission.
The university
The main campus of Wollo University is located in a city with beautiful surroundings and in a region with richness in diversity and culture. At the time of the mission there were significant cultural events, which deserve a separate blog. But, I don’t want to go straight to the story of the mission without saying a few words about one of the the hidden treasures of the city where Wollo university is located.
Dessie
Dessie is a beautiful place to visit. It is a town located between two chains of hills with a crowded city center with good hotels. The city is not for someone who wants quietness — but the surrounding hills are. The picture below is a panoramic view of the Tossa terara (terara in Amharic means mountain) taken from Azwa gedel (gedel means hill). Tossa terara is situated to the west of the city and Azwa gedel is to the east. Tossa is high (probably around 500 to 600 meters higher than the city) and challenging to climb. Wollo University main campus is located at the feet of Tossa (at the top-right corner in the image). Dessie is a highland city (2500m); it is often cold during the night and early morning. The campus is even cooler as if the cold air that flows from the hills into the valley and the city first passes through the campus.
The image above is a view from Azwa gedel, which towers over the city at around 250 meters high and is at least low enough with gentler slope than the Tossa terara. I went to Azwa gedel a couple of times for hiking during the mission—I always do so when I am in Dessie. Azwa gedel is clean, peaceful and it has some wildlife, mainly monkeys, apes and hyenas. And this time I saw what looked like a small wild goat or gazelle. Probably it is what is called a sessa locally and I only heard about it and seemed it was gone for good from the area. I saw it between trees just when making a turn after watching the baboons (photo below). It has a size and a feature of a goat. Unfortunately it ran away downhill quickly before I could have a better look, let alone make a picture. I was so happy to see the return of wildlife around the city, which were severely threatened by habitat loss and hunting. The rapid expansion of the city upwards into their habitats has become the new threat to wildlife and I hope the city authorities will declare the area a nature reserve.
Mission
I arrived in Dessie on Wednesday, December 28, and started the mission the next day on Thursday. Together with my colleague, Dr. Beshir Ali, I delivered a one-week intensive training on Modern Agri-Food Business Development to the academic staff and graduate (master’s) students. Afterwards, I gave diverse workshops together with Dr. Seid Yimam and Dr. Seleshi Yalew for promoting the sustainability of the course and the adoption of the online digital learning management system that was being deployed by the two colleagues as part of the EUDiF project.
What the trainees were probably not fully aware of was the amount of effort that went into designing the course, and the further implications of the pilot training in the future.
The idea for developing the course started in 2019, when I visited three Dutch agri-food companies in Ethiopia and held honest discussions why the companies find it difficult to find suitable employees in the country that has so many graduates who are looking for jobs. My visits was part of my work as a volunteer of IOM Netherlands. I went to one of the companies again this year and held the same discussion. I also visited several traditional and modern agribusiness owned by Ethiopians.
During my several visits and discussions some comments keep coming back. One of them was that the graduates from Ethiopian universities “lack good communication skills”. The other recurring comment was that the graduates “are good in text-book and disciplinary knowledge but … ” — and diverse comments. The comments after the “but” can be summarized as “… they lack sufficient awareness about modern businesses and how they are run, … they lack broad interdisciplinary and locally relevant knowledge”.
To have additional insights I reviewed the scientific articles published about the region where the university is located together with all my colleagues of the project (the three I mentioned and Dr. Yonas Muanenda). The review gave us a very good insight into what the academic communities (local and foreign) identified as “problems” of the area and focussed their scientific investigation on. The observations, research and consultations shaped the design of the course.
The course set-up
The result was an interdisciplinary course on modern agri-food business development that is locally embedded. It was designed to make the trainees fit for a job in modern agri-food businesses and give them essential knowledge to be entrepreneurs and job creators. It was a course composed of lectures that were interactive and activating complemented by intensive hands-on training.
Half of the time was dedicated for interactive lectures and the other half was dedicated to the hands-on training based on a concept of capstone project assignment. In their capstone assignment the trainees worked together in multidisciplinary teams consisting of 4 to 6 trainees. The capstone project was also a daily writing bootcamp moment that aimed at addressing the communication skill gap that most employers saw as an obstacle.
The training was composed of 8 interrelated modules on agri-food business development: agri-food sectors and value chains, competition and collaboration, business models, data and budgeting, investment and farm risk analysis, supply chain risk assessment, business processes, and finally information systems in agri-food businesses. Using these modules as a guide, the trainees were required to develop a business plan for an innovative and modern agri-food business of their choice.
Delivering the course
The mission on site started on December 26, but the preparation towards it started long before that. Wollo University didn’t have a learning management system (LMS). Most universities in developed countries use an LMS to manage and deliver courses. An LMS page for a course can be compared with a Facebook page for a person. A modern LMS was implemented for Wollo University by Dr. Seid and Dr. Seleshi while Dr. Beshir Ali and I set up the university’s first LMS managed course.
The delivery of the course was not only a learning moment for the trainees, it was also a learning moment for us, Dr. Beshir and I. The trainees appreciated the interdisciplinary approach, the local embeddedness (the relevance in their local context), and the focus on entrepreneurship. While they expressed their appreciation, they also pointed out that the approach was entirely new to them.
We, the trainers, were able to recognize the industry’s demand for the competencies in soft skills. We learned that the one week given to us was probably okay for piloting the course but it was far too short for delivering the course. In order to meet the desired demand by the industry, the course could ideally be given as an intensive one-month training. The engagement with trainees gave us a far deeper insight into the challenges faced by universities in Ethiopia, and particularly by Wollo University. Above all, it allowed us to appreciate the university, which does so much with small budget, limited human resources, and a deficit in stability.
Why teach modern agri-food business after all?
Dessie is 400km to north-east of Addis Ababa. I used to travel by car because a road trip in Ethiopia takes me through diverse terrains and cultures. Lack of stability in recent years made road trips risky, leaving air flight as the only safe travel option. But, I see now that flights on a small plane give tremendous advantage for anyone who wants to get a glimpse of the living conditions of rural life in northeast Ethiopia.
I took the photo shown below when travelling to Dessie. It shows a place located halfway between Addis Ababa (the capital city) and Dessie. Much of the areas of the Wollo administrative zones (the domain of Wollo university) are as hilly as this place. The northern part of Ethiopia, where Wollo is located, is densely populated with limited areas suitable for a large scale and productive agriculture. The limited resources makes the application of modern agri-food practices all the more essential.
To the east of the vastly mountainous area lie flat fertile lands with good water resources. The photo below shows one of the areas I visited during my mission. It is one of those rich fertile areas that are located around Dessie. There are agribusiness investment initiatives around Dessie and our course is targeted at supporting and modernising the existing businesses and above all to encourage new agri-food entrepreneurship initiatives that go beyond primary agricultural production.
Distance learning
The LMS and the digitised course we piloted opened a new door for Wollo University and will probably contribute to the modernization of Ethiopian higher education.
On campus (regular) higher education is not available to all. It is particularly unavailable to professionals who have to work during regular working hours. Moreover, the competition to secure a place at a university is very stiff in Ethiopia. There is therefore a very high demand for distance learning. Due to poor online learning infrastructure (including the lack of well-configured LMS at universities), distance learning relies on sending printed learning materials by post. Learning from printed learning materials at home is complimented by limited face-to-face lectures given in the evening hours or during summer breaks.
Despite the inefficiency of the current distance learning method, Wollo University graduates thousands of students through its various (partially) distance programs, which are classified into three groups: summar, extension, and (pure) distance education programs. Almost all other (around 50) public universities in Ethiopia have similar distance learning programs. There is now the realisation among the management of Wollo University that the results of our small project can be scaled up, probably with the support of the Erasmus program of EU and other funding sources. Such a scaling-up initiative can transform the university’s distance education programs considerably.
The small initiative that was supported by IOM Netherlands in 2019 which sparked this ongoing significant engagement supported by the EUDiF programme shows that small projects executed by engaged individuals and guided by dedicated support organisations can be very effective. Hopefully IOM Netherlands and the EU — through EUDiF or other programmes — will continue to support similar initiatives.
