No abstract

This article investigates skills gaps and mismatches of engineering graduates. Sustained growth of the Ethiopian economy has created demand for construction work, yet despite the labour demand and engineering graduates seeking employment, employers identify skills gaps hindering their ability to employ them. The study uses key informant interviews with engineering graduates, lecturers, and private sector employers, and document analysis to collect data on the skills gaps and mismatches. The article argues that, while skills gaps are largely caused by poor design of the higher education curriculum and corrupted recruitment practices, the precarious nature of the construction sector and macroeconomic instability limit graduate employment even further. It suggests that education providers work collaboratively with employers to make the curriculum fit for purpose, and that government both makes more realistic and long-term plans for the construction sector, and increases university funding, with an emphasis on quality and practice-focused graduate teaching and learning experiences.

The ultimate purpose of this study was to investigate the practice and challenges of school financial resource management implementation in Bahir Dar city administration. The study employed mixed methods with descriptive survey research design from a comparative perspective. Simple random sampling method was employed to draw 126 teachers. Besides, seven principals, seven vice principals and seven finance heads were taken through purposive sampling technique. Questionnaires, interviews and document analysis were data collection tools. To analyze the collected data, frequency, percentages, one sample t-test, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA and post-hoc multiple comparisons were applied. Findings showed that there is a statistically significant mean score difference between government and private secondary schools in financial resource management.

<p>The main purpose of this research is to establish an assessment of the implementation of school improvement program: a comparative study between government and private secondary schools of Ethiopia in Bahir Dar city administration. In the city administration there are a total of 17 secondary schools of which 11 schools is public and the rest 6 are private owned. Based on proximity, this study purposively took 3 public and 2 private secondary schools. Simple random sampling technique was also used to obtain 85 students from grade 10^thof the entire population. Out of 85 samples, 56 respondents were taken from government schools and the rest 29 were taken from private schools. Principals, teachers, educational experts and Parent Student Teacher Association (PSTA) were selected by purposive sampling technique. The instruments used for data collection were questionnaire, semi structured-interview and document analysis. The documents included school improvement policies, strategies and practices; with particular reference to recent updated in SIP. This instrument used for analyzing the SIP implementation from inspection checklist, GEQIP reports, and other related publications. The validity analysis of the respondent was done on selected respondents that can be representative of the sample population and also are in a professional level. The respondents of the pilot study have pointed out the shortages of the original data collection instrument by rendering critical suggestions, which are incorporated by revising the survey questionnaire and the calculated Cronbach Alpha for the five Likert-scale items was found to be 0.86 which indicated the reliability of the instrument. The study adopted quantitative and qualitative methodology with a descriptive research design in a comparative perspective.</p> <p> </p> <p>The present study found out that learning environment domain is the top most implemented domain in government and private schools; while, leadership and management domain is the least implemented domain in both government and private schools. There is significance difference with the implementation of learning environment and community involvement domain between government and private schools. While, there is no significance difference in the implementation of leadership and management domain and teaching and learning domain between government and private schools. It was recommended that, government should play the leading roles to create conducive environment to undertake challenges in the implementation of SIP, providing workshops, seminars and training to orient and train all stakeholders, appointment of school principals should be better if it is done based on merits, let school principals to work at one school for some academic years in able to attain consistency of the program implementation. </p>

Among the classic roles of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) i.e., research, teaching and community service the social engagement of institutions and their impact on civil society should be particularly highlighted. Of which, volunteering and service learning are believed to be an excellent means for accomplishing such goals. However, whether or not HEIs in developing countries like Ethiopia are able to materialize their social responsibility through such activities like student volunteerism, and their role in developing the active society was least explored. As a result, this study was planned to take place with a major objective to explore the integration of Service Learning in HEIs and Services in communities with a special focus to the cases of 2018 Summer Youth Voluntarism in Amhara Region of Ethiopia. For the purpose, a qualitative research methodology was employed. Officers and experts in the Amhara Region Bureau of Youth and Sports, and similar others at Bahir Dar City Zonal administration and in the sub-cities were drawn as informants and drawn data through interviews. In addition, the role of universities in promoting Service learning was examined from the syllabuses point of view, mainly a Course called Civics & Ethical Education using a content analysis technique. The findings reveal that though the service learning in the HEIs was not much visible through the Harmonized curriculum, Youth, especially, students of HEIs in Amhara Region of Ethiopia were found to be fully participated in services of community during the summer season of 2018, which implies the availability of the required motivation from the youth side. However a well-developed integration of service learning and volunteerism was unable to be discovered rather, this study calls for its realization.