FAITH - EthiopianUniversities of Applied Sciences areF(it), A(djusted), I(innovative), T(rendy) & H(olistic) to meet Industries and the Labor Market

The Ethiopian government decided to differentiate the higher education sector. Out of 44 universities 15 universities were defined as universities of applied sciences (UAS). Since there is no experience on UAS in the country the FAITH Project has approached EU partners interested to work with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education to build a framework for the UAS sector and to work on an Ethiopian UAS model.The overall objective is to contribute to the regional economic and social development and to increase the employability of the graduates. The specific objectives are•Ethio-EU UAS partnerships •Adjusted lessons learnt from EU as toolboxes •Tested and piloted toolboxes •A training institute to accommodate the knowledge and expertise•Optimized “the toolboxes” Activities are wrapped into work packages. The project partners work in tandems to adjust, implement and pilot lessons learned from the EU partners. Dissemination activities use social media to inform stakeholders. Papers and presentations at conferences inform national and international communities. The National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia (NADRE) hosts all products as open access licensed by CC-BY-NC-SA. The training institute accommodates a pool of trainers and the digital products.Quality management provides internal control and external auditing. Partner agreements, general and steering committee meetings gear the implementation of the Project.Beneficiaries: 30 companies, 9 regional entrepreneur associations, 30 trainers, 15 UAS incl. staff, students and stakeholdersExpected results: improved communication between the UASs and companies; UAS graduates qualified for the labor marketThe Project produces adjusted toolboxes, ToT workshops,qualified trainers, a training institution, collaboration agreements, UAS agreements and a business plan for the training institution, reports about all the activities, social media blogs, Project website, papers & conference presentation