Quality Higher Education for Public Service Reform: Opportunities, Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

Quality Higher Education is a prime driver for public service and its reform intents. The country’s Higher Education quality has, nonetheless, remained the concern of many stakeholders let alone to properly support the public service reform. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to investigate the roles of quality higher education for public service reform by exploring available opportunities, challenges and prospects. A qualitative approach was employed to generate data by reviewing documents; and by conducting- interviews with five purposely selected officials, and -focus group discussions with nine PhD students studying at Addis Ababa University. The results have shown that there are internal and external opportunities for catalysing the role of quality higher education for public services reform by producing knowledgeable, skilful and enlightened workforce and leaders. Internally, Ethiopia has formulated different policies, strategies, frameworks, and roles and responsibilities. Externally, there has been a global renewed enthusiasm for quality higher education brought about by the quest for accountability, interconnectedness, globalization, and networked designs. There, however, are challenges threatening the quality of the sector, including, rapid expansion with unmatched resources, top leadership loose commitment to quality, quantitative driven efforts, some HEIs’ unpreparedness for changes and pressures, and anomalies in board and student assignments to universities. The findings imply that all parties should make concerted efforts to build Higher Education quality assurance system on a sound foundation beyond piecemeal and quantitative gains by putting in place systemic and systematic strategies so that the sector ascertains its role of supporting public service reform for its intent of efficiency, effectiveness, and adding values for money.