| Abstract: | It is observable that Higher Education in Ethiopia faces many problems both in terms of
quantity and quality of provision. Collaborative and concerted efforts by different
partners in education that include private enterprises organized as for-profit businesses
are still necessary. However, many public educators in Tigray seem to view the private
colleges with distrust, likely for the mere reason that one of the colleges’ aims is making
profit. This paper, therefore, investigates the participation of Private Higher Education
Institutions in the management and resources support to current adult education in
Tigray and how private colleges are usually viewed by the public education sector.
Hence, the objective of this paper is to explore whether there exists major differences in
perceiving positively or negatively the educational opportunities being provided by
private colleges in Tigray. The researcher employs descriptive research method mainly
focusing on both quantitative and qualitative primary data. Data on the perception of
people concerning the private colleges was gathered by the following data collection
techniques: observation, interviews/questionnaires and document analysis. Informants
were randomly selected from public and private institutions. Available secondary data
sources from current documents were collected and integrated with the data obtained
from primary sources. Percentages were computed to analyze the data.
The findings of the study suggest that the participation and contributions of private
colleges’ to higher adult education are significant, which indicates that more household
contribution to education can be gained which is essential for learning and further
development. However, the study evidenced that the public educators mistrust private
colleges for low quality of educational service provision, while the causes of the problems
of quality of education and training cannot be problems of the private sector alone. There
appears to exist lack of commitment to participate from the education administrators’ side
to facilitate essential conditions for true participation in education. They need to share
their authority and responsibility to various actors in education, outside of the system, if
rapid development is to be achieved. |
