University Students’ National Community Services in Ethiopia: A Historical Glance (1964-1985)

Abstract

University education in Ethiopia has a short history, less than a century. Since
its foundation, students had been engaged in national community services for a couple of
periods - during the Imperial time and the Derg time. So, this paper intends to disclose
some of the experiences of the students during their national community services in
different sectors and to draw lessons for the future implementation of universitycommunity
(industry) linkage. For this purpose, document analysis and interviews with
the then students and their supervisors (instructors) were employed. The data revealed
that the services during the Imperial period seem to have borne more fruit than those
during the Derg era. The difference in their effectiveness lies in the initiatives, objectives
and execution of the program. Thus, it is instructive that a university-community linkage
needs a well-organized, financed as well as academic programs that need to go in line
with community interest implementation rather than hasty politically driven initiative.