The leadership of IQ-GEAR (Interuniversity Collaboration for Quality Education and Research) Project held a fruitful discussion with top leaders of Hawassa University.
The project leaders presented major objectives, progresses and future directions of the IQ-GEAR to the hosting HU leaders and other concerned staff. IQ-GEAR Project is a multi-university collaboration project amongst five universities: University of Ghent from Belgium and four Ethiopian universities (Addis Ababa, Jimma, Hawassa, and Ambo).
Prof. Bruno Levecke, North Coordinator from University of Ghent, elaborated on networking university alumni, the need for synergy across different collaborative projects within the five partnering universities on diverse areas of change that will support the world SDGs such as quality education, research and graduate programs, ICT and education, as well as mentorship and supervision of PhD students. He also pointed out the possible opportunities for staff and student mobility, training of trainers on PhD student supervision and mentorship [for supervisors], and also ways to define competence for Ethiopian PhD students in his presentation.
Mr. Kora Tushune, South Coordinator from Jimma University, on his part, underlined the necessity of sharing respective profiles on active collaborative projects within partner universities to avoid repetitive approaches and scattered efforts, and create a bigger synergy, efficiency and impact, to make real change happen. He said that this intention makes the IQ-GEAR project unique compared to other collaborative projects.
Dr. Emebet Bekele, Director General of the Office of External Relations and Communication at HU, presented basic profile of the university focusing on internationalization and partnerships as one of the key priorities to realize university autonomy and quality services to the guests.
Dr. Ing. Fisiha Getachew, VPAA, remarked on the dramatic change Hawassa University has gone through over the past two decades in terms of its capacity to expand academic programs, and the fact that the focus now lies on the quality of programs, not the quantity. He added that collaboration and partnership in all major university goals is a necessary move to realize quality of education, research and community engagements undertaken by HEIs like HU.
Dr. Tafesse Matewos also underscored HUs determination to work aggressively on interinstitutional collaborations to materialize its transition towards a research university. He pointed out serious challenges the university is planning to work on such as shortage of academic staff with PhD, lack of joint programs with international partners, internationalization and program accreditation, challenges with PhD students completion rate within their planned time table, quality research and publication as well as resource sharing problems, duplication of academic programs and resource centers everywhere. Dr. Tafesse added that HU is currently working with different stakeholders to tackle those problems including the obligatory participation of graduate students in big collaborative projects and thematic research projects funded by government so as the PhD students will be engaged in the medium-scale research projects and share experience with veteran researchers and better opportunity for research publication, among others.
