University working toward fostering technology transfer, community development

Of late, The Ethiopian Herald had a brief while with President of Hawassa University, Dr. Yosef Mamo regarding a number of issues. Here under follows part of the discussion.

Herald: Let us begin our discussion with the university's performance in relation to teaching-learning process, academic research as well as its community development engagements?

Dr. Yosef: I shall start with the performance evaluation result that was piled up in 2005. The result has shown that Hawasa University stands second outranked by Jimma University, according to a preview criteria which consisted over two hundred elements. Among the criteria, teaching-learning process, academic research, community development service and good governance were the major ones.

Coming to the teaching and learning process, as it is known the university has five campuses: The main campus, College of Wondo Genet Forrest and Natural Resource Conservation, College of Agriculture, College of Health Science Campus and Awada Business and Economics. The aggregate number of students enrolled in all campuses is around 18,000 undergraduate students. Together with those in the postgraduate programme, the number grows to twenty one thousand and four hundred. Even this figure is excluding extension programme students.

The university has around 64 undergraduate and 43 postgraduate programmes. There is also one technology institute. We are running these six programmes in collaboration with Norwegian and Canadian universities. After four or five years of collaboration, we will be fully running these programmes by our own. With regard to the 70/30 ratio of the academics, Hawasa University enrolls 43 per cent of its students in the areas of technology and engineering while the rest is in other natural science streams and social science streams.

We are also working to provide further infrastructural facilities for the technology institute. Hence, a standard building is under construction and it would be completed by next year. Concerning the academic research, Hawasa University has gone through different directions in this case. Previously the trend had been a given researcher came up with their topic, carried it out and the university used to keep it on a shelf.

This was totally ineffective. When the college of Agriculture was evaluated on the bases of its researches it conducted so far, the change it brought about was almost insignificant. We have formed six technology villages as areas where research should be conducted. These are areas found within a 100 kms. radius of the university. We have a number of problems to tackle in this circumference. After making a baseline survey, it has been decided that no researcher should go beyond this scope. We also encourage this by providing finance to researchers only after we make sure that it is conducted in said areas. To this effect, we are confined in conducting research in these six technology villages for the last five years.

If one goes and visits these areas and ask the farmers what Hawasa University has contributed to them, they will tell him/her far better than we do. We have farmers training centres and most farmers are getting adequate knowledge regarding better farm practices. The other point is as technology transfer is a priority given issue, we have recently launched a structure of research and technology transfer vice president.

In the past times research activities were treated under education department. Now it has got its separate office aiming at enforcing research and technology transfer. In due course, strengthening out university-industry linkage, it is planned to design and produce a prototype of various equipment to the micro and small-scale industries as well as to medium and heavy ones. The university also provides a consultancy service to the community for instance, in supervising building construction and testing soil. Herald: You said earlier that you are contributing a lot to the community. Is there any innovation which is ascribed for your university which helped the community?

Dr. Yosef: Yes, in technical aspect, we are currently modifying and providing various technological products to the micro and small-scale enterprises found here. In agriculture, we have introduced a system that helped much to sow Teff in a row. We have also introduced a modern way of making Kocho, a staple food particularly in the Southern Ethiopia. Above all, we also have introduced a system to treat acidic soil in Sidama which farmers in some states are producing a good barley used in beer production.

Herald: Inadequacy of required teachers is the main hindrance to the application of 70:30 academic ratio for many universities in our country. What is you experience in this regard?

Dr. Yosef: Well, the problem persists in all universities. And Hawassa is no exception. At the beginning we were skeptical about the fact that we could not find enough teachers in technology (natural) science stream. But, due to our excelled commitment to overcome this challenge, we have invited and hired teachers from India as well as from other foreign universities with an agreement in a block form. There are professors and other lecturers who come and teach for free. Secondly, as matter of comparative advantage prevailing in Hawassa, there are teachers who work as part timers. This is the advantage that come in tandem with the suitability of the location of Hawasa.

Another critical problem is employee turnover. We employed about sixty lecturers and ten of them left six month later. In any case, what is important is to access education to many students despite such problems. Every thing may not be suitable. Besides, every knowledge cannot be exclusively acquired in a university education. University is rather a place to be guided, the rest they will practice it more in real life when they start working in their areas of interest.

Herald: Some students complained as equipment in your laboratories are outdated ones. They also indicated that there is shortage of materials to carry out practical studies. What is your comment on that?

DR. Yosef: Yes, there are old laboratory equipment and old machines that house of peoples' representatives had urged us to use these machines. Recently we have imported laboratory equipment and machines worth 52 million birr. Hence, the construction of a building is under way to fix the equipment. When the building construction will be completed by the coming year, the equipment and machines will start service. So these old laboratory equipment and machines will be disposed.

Herald: There is what we call a one to five bondage in many universities. Do you have it here and is it politically driven as many are accusing it?

Dr. Yosef: There is a wrong perception about a-one-to-five bondage that some people hold. This is even evident in some teachers of ourselves, they have a sort of problem that is relating it directly with politics. But, it is by far different from that. Science, for instance, advocates peer learning is crucial. I can study something while discussing it with you ... when it comes to reading activity, you do it for yourself, i.e., individually. The former certainly needs group work than the latter. This is an exact science. So students, through this peer learning mechanism, are more beneficial and share knowledge one from another. Some say why do I waste my time in helping others. But, it is not only helping others, it is largely helping oneself. This is a system that come into being after critical studies have undergone. It is an instrument that students use it to help each other.

Herald: As Hawassa is a hub of tourism, what are you doing to protect female students from various problems that emanates from this? I ask you this question because some statistical data are heard pertaining to female students of the university.

Dr. Yosef: We orient female students most of the time. And they (female students of the university) also say the acts of few ill mannered females seem shadowing the majority. They are right. Let me raise one amazing phenomenon here that is affecting our university. If one stands at the main gate of the university, they would find a bar lady waiting for anybody to pick her. When a certain man comes close to her and asks who and from where she is, she definitely tell him that she is a third year economics student of this university. But, the reality is otherwise. She is using our university wrongly to attract her customers. To make matters worse, such ladies may speak English well [which may not be a big deal] and also own fake Identification Card. But in practice, our students have goals to meet and anyone can come and prove the fact. Some newspapers without a valid data simply feed the public with distorted information. I know a person who said “65 per cent of our students are HIV carriers.” What does it mean? Media people should also relay on statistically proven figures. I want to tell that the media should feel responsibility. Any way, we have a gender directorate which carries out various forums that female students willingly participate. And we are working hard on various matters.

Herald: How about gender harassment in the university?

Dr. Yosef: We cannot say there is no female harassment here. But, the gender directorate also works to avoid gender harassment. Sometimes, it happens from both genders. You might have heard what happened here some time ago. Once, a certain female student who was not academically good to pursue her education set a trap to a lecturer. She scored two F's in two courses. And she was sure that her grade for the course he had been giving also another F. Calculating this, she dated him somewhere. And she deceived him acting as if she was sick. Actually, he could have taken her to a nearby hospital. Sadly he took her to a hotel room. She was “smart” enough to call the police, then he was caught red handed. A court set this man free after investigating the case. Whatever the court case, we penalized him for his unethical deed.

Source@http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/editorial/5411-university-working-toward-fostering-technology-transfer-community-development