Digital Skills Country Action Plan for Ethiopian HE and TVET … · 2021. 1. 16. · Digital Skills...

Digital Skills Country Action Plan for Ethiopian HE and TVET Institutions

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Foreword

We are in a time where a global digital revolution is underway. More and more people are being

connected to the Internet than ever before and using digital devices and services for work and for

all aspects of life is becoming evident. As a result, we are experiencing a rapid shift in the nature

of work to which we must not only respond to it but also get prepared for it. In line with this, the

Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MoSHE) is pleased to present this National Digital

Skills Country Action Plan (DSCAP) for Ethiopian Higher Education (HE) and TVET Institutions

for the period of ten years, 2021-2030.

Technological advancement promises disruption across sectors, requiring us form the foundational

to highly specialized digital skills. At a time when digital technologies are driving the major social,

economic, and technological changes, developing the digital skills of the present and future work

force of a country should be given a priority. In this regard, MoSHE by the virtue of its

responsibility and based on its ten-year strategic plan, 2020-2030, must move forward to take the

leading role in preparing students in HE and TVET institutions with the right level of digital skills

that the future work environment demands. This also requires making ready the necessary policies

and strategies, designing the appropriate curriculum, enhancing the teaching learning process to

be supported by ICTs, developing the necessary infrastructure and resources. This document

recognizes the need for a concerted effort to make these requirements ready so that digital

technologies play a significant role in educating our students by offering them new ways to learn,

communicate, share, create and collaborate; and ultimately enable them to live and work well in

an era of this rapid technological change.

Recognizing the aforementioned need for digitally skilled citizens, we are now launching this

Digital Skills Country Action Plan for Higher Education and TVET institutions in Ethiopia. This

action plan is designed in line with the new ten-year perspective plan and the three-year

Homegrown Economic Reform agenda, the Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy, the UN Sustainable

Development Goals 2030, and the Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030). The

action plan is aimed at creating an environment conducive to the deployment of digital

technologies for educational purposes, making use of digital technologies to enhance and diversify

teaching and learning practices, and developing digital skills in the higher education and TVET


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institutions. The action plan has five strategy components: (1) Establishing Enabling Policies,

Digital Skills Framework, and Digital Skills Assessment; (2) Reform of Digital Skills Programs;

(3) Enhance Use of Technology in Teaching Learning; (4) Connect Higher Education and TVET

institutions to Affordable High-Speed Broadband and Improving Campus Network Digital

Services; and (5) Capacity Building and Process Reengineering. The plan is a result of wide-

ranging consultations with stakeholders such as the World Bank, leadership and high-level experts

from Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MoSHE) and agencies under it, representatives

from the private sector and universities as well as TVETs in the country.

I would like to thank my colleagues at the ministry for their close follow-up and collaboration on

this ambitious but attainable action plan. By taking such an ambitious plan for the benefit of the

current generation and those to come, we will ensure equal opportunity to all students, and create

the needed digital skills of our graduates’ full potential at all levels. I call upon all our stakeholders

to do their best in implementing this action plan and to be inspired by the benefits it can create to

take us a significant step further in fulfilling the potential and the promise of our digital future and

the economic prosperity of the country.

Samuel Urkato Kurke (PhD)

Minister

Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

Ministry of Science and Higher Education


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Table of Contents Executive Summary .................................................................................................... vii

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 2

2. Partnerships ............................................................................................................. 5

3. Potential Risk and Mitigation ................................................................................. 6

4. Digital Skill Country Action Plan Strategies .......................................................... 8

4.1. Strategy 1 – Establishing Enabling Policies, Digital Skills Framework, and

Digital Skills Assessment ............................................................................................ 8

4.1.1. Baseline Status ...................................................................................... 8

4.1.2. Goals of the Strategy ........................................................................... 2

4.1.3. Activities ................................................................................................ 4

4.1.4. Implementation Timeline ..................................................................... 7

4.1.5. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) ....................................................... 8

4.1.6. Budget Requirement ............................................................................ 9

4.2. Section-II: Strategy 2 - Reform of Digital Skills Programs ........................... 10

4.2.1. Baseline Status .................................................................................... 11

4.2.2. Goals of the Strategy ......................................................................... 16

4.2.3. Activities .............................................................................................. 21

4.2.4. Implementation Timeline ................................................................... 22

4.2.5. Key Performance Indicators.............................................................. 23

4.2.6. Budget Requirement .......................................................................... 25

4.3. Section-III: Strategy 3 - Enhance Use of Technology in Teaching Learning,

Research, and Administration ................................................................................ 33

4.3.1. Baseline Status .................................................................................... 36


4.3.3. Activities .............................................................................................. 41




4.4. Strategy 4 - Connect HE and TVET institutions to Affordable High-Speed

Broadband and Improving Campus Network Digital Services ........................... 67

4.4.1. Baseline Status .................................................................................... 69


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4.4.3. Activities .............................................................................................. 74




4.5. Strategy 5 – Capacity Building and Process Reengineering ..................... 84

4.5.1. Baseline Status .................................................................................... 86


4.5.3. Activities .............................................................................................. 89




5. Implementation Strategies ................................................................................ 100

5.1. Involvement of Development Partners for Technical and Financial Support

100

5.2. Involvement of Stakeholders and the Private Sector ............................... 100

5.3. Devise ways of other Financing Sources for the Implementation of the Plan

101

5.4. Promoting Gender Equality and Supporting Disabilities .......................... 101

ANNEX ........................................................................................................................ 103

Annex I:List of Abbreviations ................................................................................ 103

Annex II: List of Public Universities and Number of Students and Faculty in Public

Universities .............................................................................................................. 105

Annex III: e-Competence: Title and description ................................................ 107

Annex IV: Sample Responses for Capacity Building requirement survey ....... 113


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List of Tables

Table 1: Required enabling policies ............................................................................ 3

Table 2: digital skills framework .................................................................................... 3

Table 3: digital skills Assessment ................................................................................... 4

Table 4: List of Activities, timeline, and deliverables .................................................. 5

Table 5: Key Performance Indicators for strategy 1 .................................................. 8

Table 6: Number of Institutions in HEIs and TVETs in Ethiopia ................................... 12

Table 7: Enrollment and Gross Enrollment Ratio in HEIs and TVETs in Ethiopia ...... 12

Table 8: Number of Academic Staff in HEIs and TVETs in Ethiopia ......................... 13

Table 9: Indicators of Demand for Digital Skills from Principal Use Sectors (Jobs and

Users) ............................................................................................................................ 15

Table 10: Indicators of demand for digital skills in ICT and Telecommunications

Industries ...................................................................................................................... 16

Table 11: High-level Goals of the Sub-strategy 2.1 in the Time Frame Planned. .. 17

Table 12: High-Level Goals of the Sub-Strategy 2.2 (reform of the undergraduate

programs in IT fields) in the Time Frame Planned ..................................................... 18

Table 13: Projected Enrollment in Undergraduate Programs in the IT Related Fields

for 2025 & 2030 ............................................................................................................ 18

Table 14: High-level Goals of the Sub-strategy 2.3 (reform of the MSc and PhD

programs in IT related fields) in the Time Frame Planned ....................................... 19

Table 15: High-level Goals of the Sub-Strategy 2.4 (reform of TVET Courses) in the

Time Frame Planned ................................................................................................... 20

Table 16: High-level Goals of the Sub-Strategy 2.5 (Rapid Skilling Programs) in the

Time Frame Planned ................................................................................................... 20

Table 17: Timeline for the reform of all level DS in all HEIs and TVETs ..................... 22

Table 18: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) ............................................................ 23

Table 19: Baseline Data for Distance learning ......................................................... 37

Table 20: Desired state of this strategy by 2025 and 2030 for digital skills ............. 38

Table 21: Goals of the sub-strategies for strategy 3................................................. 39

Table 22: Quality standards for online courses ........................................................ 45

Table 23: Course Selection and Faculty Development .......................................... 46

Table 24: Approach for online course management ............................................. 47

Table 25: Digital tools and their usage ...................................................................... 48

Table 26: Access to digital devices ........................................................................... 49

Table 27: Strategy to build learning centers ............................................................. 51

Table 28: Strategy for course selection and prioritization ....................................... 52

Table 29: Digital tools and faculty development .................................................... 53

Table 30: Minimum standards for faculty digital skills development ...................... 53

Table 31: Implementation Timeline ........................................................................... 54

Table 32: Key Performance Indicators (KPI) ............................................................. 56


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Table 33: Status of Current Connections at HEIs and TVETs .................................... 69

Table 34: Category (Scenario 1) for HEIs (Not considered for further process) .... 72

Table 35: Category (Scenario 2) for HEIs (Considered for further process) ........... 73

Table 36: Category (Scenario 1) for TVETs (Not considered for further process) .. 73

Table 37: Category (Scenario 2) for TVETs (Considered for further process) ........ 73

Table 38: Indicators & Goals for EthERNet ................................................................ 73

Table 39: Indicators & Goals for CaNDiS................................................................... 74

Table 40: EthERNet (NREN) Enhancement and HR .................................................. 74

Table 41: Modernization of Campus Networks and HR .......................................... 75

Table 42: Implementation timeline for EthERNet Enhancement ............................ 76

Table 43: Implementation timeline for Campus Network Modernization ............. 78

Table 44:Indicators & Goals for EthERNet ................................................................. 79

Table 45: Indicators & Goals for CaNDiS................................................................... 79

Table 46: Capacity building Focus Areas ................................................................. 90

Table 47: Modalities for Capacity Building ............................................................... 91

Table 48: Digital Skills Framework for Digital Leaders in Ethiopian HEIs and TVETs 91

Table 49: Digital Skills Framework for Digital Specialists in Ethiopian HEIs and TVETs

...................................................................................................................................... 92

Table 50: Relation of capacity building and BPR efforts in this strategy to capacity

needs from other strategies ....................................................................................... 94

Table 51: Key milestones up to 2025, year-by-year ................................................. 96

Table 52: Key Performance Indicators (KPI) ............................................................. 98


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Executive Summary

While Ethiopia’s goal of achieving middle-income status by 2025 continues to shape policies,

institutional arrangements, and investment strategies, some macrolevel economic, environmental,

and political perspectives have shifted or been intensified, opening new areas for attention and

action. The national policy priorities set out in a new ten-year perspective plan and the three-year

Homegrown Economic Reform provide guidance and direction mainly on developing agriculture,

tourism, manufacturing, ICT, and mining sectors, among others. Ultimately the plan in each

sectator informs that changing the way things have been done and increasing productivity and job

opportunity and modernizing the overall system are central. Laying the foundation for technology

competency and building digital economy; developing and expanding accessibility of information

and communication technology; upgrading information communication technology service;

applying technology for the improvement of productivity and competency; building human

resource capacity that fits innovation and technology development are priorities of the 10-year

Development plan in the ICT sector. Similarly, Digital Ethiopia 2025, a digital strategy for

Ethiopia inclusive prosperity indicates that job creation, increased forex and inclusive prosperity

are the corner stone for the planed inclusive digital economy. Thus, realizing that digital

technology is a means to all the aspired development agendas, setting up the platform for the digital

skills development in Higher education and TVETs is fundamental.

A Digital skills Country Action Plan aligned with the 2019 Homegrown Economic Reform Agenda

and the Ten-Year Development Plan (2020-2030) and Digital Ethiopia 2025 as well as with

international commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals, Partnership for skills in

Applied Science Engineering and Technology (PASET), Digital Economy for Africa (DE4A) and

the African Union's Continental Digital Strategy is a priority for Ministry of Science and Higher

Education. Higher Education and TVETs are assumed to have better in capacity and connectivity

so as to provide intermediate and advanced digital skills that can defuse into the wider community.

Thus, this Digital Skills Country Action Plan (DSCAP) outlines strategic objectives for Ministry

of Science and Higher education in its effort to realize the new ten-year perspective plan and the

three-year Homegrown Economic Reform by producing competent and digitally skilled workforce

that can modernize the agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, and mining sector.

This DSCAP is an organized plan to

• Develop, deploy, and use information and communication technologies to improve the

capability of HE and TVETs and their graduates,

• Create an inclusive and gender responsive digital skills development,

• Increase the productivity and innovativeness of the Higher Education and TVET

community, and

• Optimize HE and TVETs contribution to the development of the country by providing

digital skill training for youth out of school.


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The higher education and TVET systems are set to expand as their rate of enrollment is

continuously increasing due to the greater number of students that are completing secondary school

on a yearly basis. Ensuring the quality of digital skills training in these institutions can have an

immediate impact on the employability of graduates by adding critical competencies that

employers demand. In addition, focusing the attention and using the limited resources available on

a relatively smaller number of institutions (compared to the thousands of primary and secondary

schools) can create immediate and visible impact. The reform of digital skills programs in higher

education and TVET institutions can also impact the overall school system in two ways: by

generating the demand for acquiring basic and intermediate level digital skills amongst school

students, and also by preparing new (pre-service) primary and secondary school teachers, who are

trained in higher education, with digital competencies.

In the current trend of digital transformation, foundational digital skills are essential, but not

enough. Intermediate and advanced level digital skills are required to effectively exploit digital

technologies for economic development. In Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, higher education and

TVET institutions are best placed to develop these intermediate and advanced level digital skills

(rather than at school level) as they have better capacity in human capital and technological assets

(such as trainers, computer labs, etc.) and better connectivity. Moreover, students in HE and TVET

institutions do have the ability to share informally their skills with their siblings, parents, and the

people around them. As interventions at these institutions become successful, trainings can easily

be organized for youth out of school using the facilities and skills at the institutions. Students in

HEIs and TVETs are also groups of citizens that soon after joining the labor market and can create

a fast impact on the economy. This is therefore why the country has to focus primarily the digital

skills development programs on higher education and TVET institutions.

The Digital Skills Country Action Plan sets goals with measurable targets and lay out strategies,

activities, costs, and a detailed implementation plan covering the period 2020-2030. The plan has

recognized the following interconnected five strategic areas:

• The development of enabling policies for the development of Digital Skills, a Digital Skills

Framework customized for HE and TVETs (adapted from global frameworks), and a

system of Digital Skills assessments.

• Reform of priority Digital Skills education and training programs in higher education and

TVET institutions (including introduction of new programs). This includes Digital Skills

courses at the intermediate level for students in all courses and, at the advanced level

• Enhanced use of online courses and integration of a range of digital tools, from the most

basic to sophisticated, in teaching-learning, administration, research and community

services

• Increased and affordable high-speed broadband connectivity in research and educational

networks at the national as well as higher education and TVET institution levels. Improved

development and management of campus networks and infrastructure.


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• Capacity building of staff and development of efficient and digitally enabled business

processes in Ministries of Higher Education/TVET/Education and relevant national

authorities (such as HERQA, HESC and TVETA).

The below figure provides a diagrammatic representation of how these strategies contribute to

delivering the overall goals of the Digital Skills Country Action Plan, namely the development of

intermediate and advanced level skills amongst students in higher education and TVET

institutions.

Figure: Overview of the structure of the proposed Digital Skills Country Action Plan

Strategy 1- Establishing Enabling Policies and Developing Digital Skills framework – There is

absence of specific regulatory frameworks to encourage use of technology and digital learning and

lack of a standard digital skills framework informed. The sector has to develop and implement a

digital policy and strategy for Higher Education and TVET institutions, an intellectual property

rights policy for digital content ownership, a EthERNet policy, a digital procurement and HR

policy and a taxation policy for ICT equipment and services until 2025, among others. Similarly,

until 2025 a Digital Skills Framework has to be developed for Educators, ICT professionals and

all other professions. A national digital skills assessment scheme will be in place and 25% of the

ICT professionals and educators and 50 of students in Higher Education and TVET Institutions

will be assessed until 2026. International assessment will be done in 5% in 2024, 5% in 2026 and

10% in 2030. The national assessment will reach 100% by 2030. Since both the enabling policies

and the digital skills framework are basic and their successful implementation greatly affect the

success and initiations of the other strategies (strategy 2-5), most of the activities are planned to

be executed in the near future form December 2020 until 2024.


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Strategy 2 is reform of digital skills program to provide intermediate-level digital skills to 30% of

the students enrolled in TVETs and 50% of the students enrolled in HEIs. Reformed computer

engineering, computer science, Information Systems, and related programs will be established in

about 33 public universities, providing advanced digital skills to students including key courses in

modern topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Blockchain and related topics.

MSc and PhD programs offering revised highly specialized Digital Skills courses will increase

enrolment from the current 1400 to 2000 (by 2025, MSc level) and from the current 70 to 140 (by

2025, PhD level). Specialized TVET courses providing intermediate digital skills to TVET

students in ICT fields will be rolled out in 568 of the 1568 current TVET institutions by 2025. A

targeted 175,000 students in TVET will have completed selected courses in Rapid Skilling

Programs that respond to industry needs by 2025.

The digital skills reform program considers the following education structure


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In order to enhance the teaching and learning, administration, and research in HE and TVETs,

Strategy 3 plans to update the Introductory ICT course and provide it to all new students that covers

2o-23% of all the students at HEIs and TVETs every year. It is also planned to deliver digital tools

selected for courses and offer them online in a blended form along with the courses as intermediate

level courses. The Introduction to ICT course will be expanded to include skills necessary for

computer and internet usage as well as use of LMS for intermediate digital skills online training.

The different modules of the intermediate level Digital Skills training will be offered online to all

students and faculty (higher education and TVET) by 2025. In addition, all teachers need to be

trained to embed/use technology in their teaching as well as research by 2025. Private HEIs and

TVETs will develop their capacity by themselves and join the digital skills development strategy

100% by 2030.

Strategy 4 aims to increase connectivity to EthERNet for public HEIs from the current 72% to

100% for TVET institutions from the current 0% to 75%and for students and faculty in all HEIs

and TVETs from the current ‘very low’ to 100% by 2025 and to improve the core network speed

from institutions to the EthERNet from the current 10Gbps to 40Gbps by 2025. The total internet

bandwidth in HEIs and TVETs is expected to grow from the current aggregated 20Gbps to

120Gpbs, and the length of the fiber network for EthERNet connectivity is expected to grow from

the current 4,800km to 20,000km. Training capacity should reach 100 hours/year of training to

ICT service management and support staff. Campus networks in public HEIs and TVETs should

be expanded such that 80% have upgraded to fibre and 80% of buildings have fiber connectivity.

All academic areas should have Wi-Fi, and campus IT service personnel are expected to be 4 per

1000 students by 2025. All private HEIs and TVETs faculty and students shall be connected to

EthERNet to access digital skills modules by 2025. The remaining tasks of connectivity such as

connecting all TVETs to EthERNet and building campus networks is planned to be attained 100%

by 2030.

Strategy 5 pursues to provide capacity building on digital resource management to 42,520 (100%)

staff (from MoSHE, TVET agency and Institutes, HEI and TVET management staff) as the

capacity building shall be a prerequisite to the implementation of other strategies. This is computed

in such a way that four leaders are considered from each of the 674 TVETs, 9 leaders from each

of the 50 HEIs, 4 leaders from each of the 38 College of Teachers Education, 650 staff from

Ministry headquarters, and 300 from the agencies under the ministry. It is assumed that on average

two relevant digital skills trainings will be given to a staff every year for the first five years of the

10 years plan period. Besides, about fifteen key business processes will be reengineered in areas

including management processes, operational processes, and support processes. All new

management and support staffs in the MoSHE, HEIs, and TVETs who assume position or join the

institutions after 2025 are also planned to take the capacity building courses until 2030. The

courses are categorized as intermediate, advanced, highly specialized, and digital leadership

management level.


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Achieving these grand strategies in the HE and TVET sector will help HE and TVET institutions

to better prepare graduates for the realities of the domestic labor market and improve overall

national performance. The achievement of the ten-year development plan of all sectors depends

on the workforce that this plan aims to digitally enable. Supporting this plan thus must be the

priorities of all national and international community. However, the plan demands finance and

coordinated effort among different sectors such as Ministry of Innovation and Technology,

Ministry of Trade and industry, Ministry of Finance, Ethio-telecom, and Civil Service

Commission.


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1. Introduction

Building digital skills as an essential component to an inclusive digital economy across the African

continent was the takeaway from the 5th PASET Forum hosted in Kigali, Rwanda in 2019. This

further is rooted in the SDG 4 agenda that developing nations need to ensure inclusive and

equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all by using all the

available resources and skills. Agenda 2063 of African Union, further, states that the success of

the continent can only be ensured with well-educated citizens and skills revolution underpinned

by science, technology, and innovation. Thus, harnessing the capacity of ICT to improve access,

quality and management of education and training systems is taken as a strategic objective by

Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016-2025. In order to put this into effect , the Africa

Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020 – 2030) aspires that “By 2030 all our

people should be digitally empowered and able to access safely and securely to at least (6 mb/s)

all the time where ever they live in the continent at an affordable price of no more than (1cts USD

per mb) through a smart device manufactured in the continent at the price of no more than (100

USD) to benefit from all basic e-services and content of which at least 30% is developed and

hosted in Africa".

A structured series of initiatives intended to improve the capacities of Ethiopian Higher Education

and Technical and Vocational Education and Training to meet challenges arising from the

increasing demand and adoption of digital technologies and the impact of these on the world of

work, education and broader society necessitates a comprehensive plan. What is more, there is a

need to have an action plan that encompasses the Ministry of Science and Higher Educations

implementation measures for achieving the goals of the “Digital Ethiopia 2025-A digital strategy

for Ethiopia inclusive prosperity”.

Achieving these grand national, continental, and global agendas required Sub-Saharan African

countries to prepare fully operational and costed Digital Skills Country Action Plans that will help

prioritize investment requirements, undertake regulatory and policy changes, and mobilize funding

with a focus on the Higher Education and TVETs level.

Higher Education and TVETs need to be inclusive up to date engines of national development in

producing skilled manpower and developing innovative approaches fit for the national context and

the economic demand. These institutions have to stir the economy and guide the progress and

satisfy the demands. However, achieving such grand goals seems unlikely unless they reform the

way they do things and embrace the dynamic and highly impacting digital development. As a

result, tertiary education institutions have to play a leading role so that the spillover effect will be

high and have to put digital skills at the center of their transformation.

Cognizant of these contexts, MoSHE has made its main strategic objective to produce digitally

competent citizens, supporting research and administrations using state-of-the-art technology by


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expanding the digital infrastructure in its 10-year strategy (Higher Education and Training

Development Plan (MoSHE, 2020)). MoSHE believes that the absence of digital skills framework,

specific regulations to encourage use of technology and digital content, affordable connectivity

and digital skilled manpower in the sector are factors that will withhold the success of the digital

transformation.

Factors Restraining Development of Digital Skills

• Lack of a Digital Skills Framework

• Absence of specific regulations to encourage use of technology and digital content

• Absence of strategy for affordable connectivity for higher education and TVET

institutions

• Understanding of practical options for using online courses and programs

• Lack of demand driven programs /curriculum

• Lack of standardized digital skills training and assessment system

• Limited digital skills of leaderships at the Ministry, regulatory bodies in higher

education and Training sector (HERQA,HESC, TA, HE and TVET). (Lack of

Commitment and Use of DT)

In order to ensure that the students are prepared for the future jobs , and students of all fields and

background acquire the required digital skills, a Digital Skills Country Action Plan having five

broad coordinated strategies, with detailed actions is developed based on the assessment of the

digital skills demand, the description of the current digital skills supply, and the goals for digital

skills development (intermediate for digital skills all occupations; intermediate, advanced and

highly specialized for ICT professions) of the Higher Education and TVET. Above all each broad

coordinated strategy has activities and cost estimations for implementation

The Digital Skills Country Action Plan (DSCAP) has the following five coordinated strategies.

Strategy 1 - Establish enabling policies and develop Digital Skills Framework: includes developing

enabling policies and regulatory frameworks that support digital skills enhancement and training

efforts of HEIs and TVETs. In addition, this strategy also focuses on developing a national Digital

Skills Framework, to be used by individuals, educational institutions, and employers to identify

Digital Skills required in various occupations through a Digital Skills Assessment system.

Strategy 2 - Reform of Digital Skills programs in HEIs and TVETs including introduction of new

programs: addresses reform of Digital Skills courses at the intermediate level for all students in

HEIs and TVETs and, reform of advanced level as well as reform of highly specialized level

programs in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, and other related

programs.


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Strategy 3 - Enhance use of technology for Administration, Research, and technology transfer, and

teaching learning as well as provision of online courses using Learning Management Systems and

integration of a range of digital tools, in teaching-learning across all HEIs and TVETs.

Strategy 4 – Connect Higher Education and TVET institutions to affordable high-speed broadband

by strengthening the Ethiopian Education and Research Educational Network (EthERNet) and

ensure existence of modern campus networks infrastructure and services.

Strategy 5 - Develop capacity of staff and ensure efficient and digitally enabled business processes

in the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MoSHE), HEIs, and TVETs.

Figure 1: Coordinated DSCAP strategies

It is believed that these five coordinated strategies and sub strategies in each category are

interconnected. The success of one depends on the other and for ease of implementation and follow

up timeline and responsible bodies are indicted for each activity under each sub strategies.


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2. Partnerships

Implementing such a vast plan has never been easy and an individual institution’s task. A

number of international and national organizations and public and private institutions are

required to be part of these initiatives. The partnership expected from these diverse groups is

financial support, capacity development, technical support, and infrastructure. Similarly,

partners that are working together and taking their share are important. International

organizations, multilateral donors and development banks are expected to support the

realization of this plan mainly by availing finance and capacity development programs. Local

organizations and Ministries should also contribute their share in a form of capacity building

and infrastructure sharing. In the past, many of them were supporting transformation in Higher

Education and TVETs and they deserve respect and appreciation. However, their effort can only

be complete and bear fruit while they sustain their support in transforming the system to the

level where the current global development requires which is digital transformation. This can

be achieved by partnering to implement DSCAP.


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3. Potential Risk and Mitigation

As any new plan and its being highly strategic with a number of sub strategies that require new

forms of skill and ways of doing the unusual task, a number of potential risks can be anticipated.

Similarly, the dynamic nature of technology and the experiences transferred from previous reform

initiative in the country could also contribute for the emergence of several risks. The risks could

result from the ambitious demand and objectives set and the rapid change in time. As a result, it

is very pragmatic to anticipate potential risks that are related to finance, leadership commitment,

sectorial coordination, and lack of human resources. As a country with a number of competing

needs and poor infrastructure, the first very likely risk is lack of budget to support IT related

projects such as DSCAP. However, it is expected that development partners and loan provider who

would like to contribute for the national development of Ethiopia could be contacted to mitigate

the budget shortage. It is hoped that this DSCAP clearly show where Ethiopian Higher Education

and TVET institutions are going to go in order to contribute for the success of the nation in its

effort to be a middle-income country and establish a digital economy. As a result, supporting this

plan is contributing for the national transformation and supporting the effort of Africa to achieve

the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

As the DSCAP demands proactive leadership and its implementation affect the whole sphere of

the economic and social development, having a leadership that understands its value and makes a

continuous follow up is vital. In almost all cases on technology initiatives, success highly depends

on the leadership commitment. This challenge could be likely to exist but the efforts being made

by the government to bring young professionals to the for front of the leadership can be considered

as a potential advantage. The time that the document is ready can be considered as an opportunity

to mitigate leadership issue since similar initiatives are given priority by the current government.

Another important risk is related to poor sectoral coordination’s. As it is stated, achieving the

ambitious goals of the DSCAP is not only the task of one or two Ministries rather it involves

several relevant ministries and both private and public stakeholders. Unless these actors are

brought together successful implementation is not likely. Thus, these risks will be addressed by

establishing an advisory council where all the relevant Ministries and both public and private IT

service providers are members.

Last but not least, lack of human resource with the required skills and competence is another risk

to implement the DSCAP particularly in the first five years of the plan. This can be mitigated by

engaging professionals in different sectors, creating awareness, and monitoring and evaluating the

process, developing information sharing platform and building capacities of low-level

professionals. As a result, leaders will be cadres of the digital economy, institutions will revisit

their position and role in the national development and professionals will commit to have more of

them in the system.


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Another risk being emerging recently is the effect of COVID-19. Though the COVID 19 pandemic

is a very strong push factor to embrace DSCAP particularly at the initial phase, its being a hurdle

for the successful implementation is obvious. Thus, some of the 2020 and 2021 activities might

demand more budget and different approach. Anticipating these and readjusting activities as per

the current context is expected from the leadership that will be in charge of this plan.


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4. Digital Skill Country Action Plan Strategies

The objective of the Digital Skills Country Action Plan is to produce digitally qualified students

who can enter the workforce with intermediate level and advanced skills for the economy and for

the IT and IT enabled service sectors. And the main goals of this digital skill country action plan

are to provide intermediate level of skills to all occupations irrespective of what they are studying;

intermediate, advanced, and highly specialized for ICT professions. Considering this, the below

five broad coordinated strategies, with detailed actions, to achieve these goals were proposed.

4.1. Strategy 1 – Establishing Enabling Policies, Digital Skills

Framework, and Digital Skills Assessment

Recent development and global demands indicate that digitalization has a disruptive and

transformative effect on the overall national economy. In such situations Ethiopia considered

digital transformation as a priority area to achieve the planed prosperity by 2025. To achieve this

plan, tertiary education is a driving force and need to adapt how they deliver teaching, learning

and research in response to unprecedented, market shaping changes to financing and student

expectations (Cisco, 2017). In this effort of adaptation, understanding the relevant policies and

strategies at national and institutional level is fundamental. Strategy 1 reviewed available policies,

implementation guidelines and standards that have effect on digital skills development and digital

economy of the country.

4.1.1. Baseline Status

Basic national policies such as National Information Security Policy (2011) and Science

Innovation and Technology Policy (2012) are in place and indicated that developing science and

technology institutions that focus on producing highly qualified technicians, engineers and

scientists in line with the demand of the national economy; focusing on modifying the balance of

the enrolment numbers of higher education students in favor of the science and technology human

resource development need of the country and conduct practical training in cooperation with

industry; increasing the number of females enrolling in engineering, science and TVET

institutions; and enable the establishment of workforce in manufacturing and service providing

enterprises with the knowledge and skills necessary to learn, adapt and utilize technology are the

ultimate strategies. The National Broadband Strategy which was in place in the 2016 indicates that

the implementation ranges from 2016-2020/21 and made Education one of its target areas. This

strategy required the expansion of the telecom service and the demand from public and private

institutions; however, the strategy misses higher education and TVETs. On the other hand , Digital

Ethiopia 2025 that aspires to transform Ethiopia to prosperity through job creation, foreign

currency generation and efficient services provision indicates that digital skill is fundamental for

the future of the economy and considers the human resource development as an important

ecosystem to realize the digital transformation in manufacturing, Agriculture, IT enabled services


2

and tourism. Similarly, the document calls for improved and ambitious digital skills training and

education. Higher Education and TVET sector must serve as source for the supply of digitally

skilled manpower. Therefore, having have enabling policies and a framework for the digital skills

in the sector is fundamental. As a result, these enabling policies and digital skills framework guide

the reform of the digital skills programs, use of technology in teaching and learning, connecting

institutions to high-speed internet and capacity building and business reengineering aspect of the

digital skills country action plan.

4.1.2. Goals of the Strategy

Based on the reviewed policies, the demand for digitally enabled tertiary education graduate is

vital for the achievement of the grand Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy. In order to produce the

required human resource, the sector has to establish enabling policies and develop digital skills

framework and institute digital skills assessment so that the sector can supply graduates with

intermediate and advanced level digital skills.

The following are the goals of this strategy

a) Establishing Enabling Policies

Enabling policies make the implementation of the rest of the targets identified by strategy 2,3,4

and 5 simple and well thought. The development of enabling policies that are relevant to the digital

economy in areas related to tertiary education focuses on digital content, e learning, open

resources, intellectual property right, administrative effectiveness, and governance. As a result,

once such a policy is in place in the sector institutions can develop operational institution level

plans.

Once the enabling polices are in place achieving MoSHE’s 10 years development plan that states

digitally competent citizens and supporting research and administrations using state-of-the-art

technology by expanding the digital infrastructure is will assured. Thus until 2025, the enabling

polices to be developed and implemented are:

• Intellectual Property Rights policy

• National Research and Education Network Policy

• Interoperability policy

• Cross boarder data use policy

• Universal access fund policy

• ICT devices and tools Procurement and ICT related HR policy, and

• Taxation policy for digital equipment and services.

These policies will make the digital skills curriculum reform, educational institutions connectivity,

technology use in teaching and learning and capacity building efforts in the HE and TVETs

effective and efficient. The Digital Skills policy and strategies for HEIs and TVETs will guide the


3

curriculum reform, the use of technology in teaching and learning and the digital transformation

of institutions. Thus, the preparation of these high-level policies will be directly connected to the

respective DSCAP Strategies indicated below

Table 1: Required enabling policies

Required Policies Related DSCAP

Strategy

Timeline Responsible body

Digital skills policy for HE and

TVETs

Strategy 2,3,4,5 2020 MoSHE

Interoperability policy Strategy 3 and 4 2021 MoSHE and MInT

Universal access fund policy Strategy 4 2021 MoSHE and MInT

Cross border data use policy Strategy 4 2021 MoSHE and Ethiopian

Communication Authority

National Research and Education

Network Policy

Strategy 3 and 4 2021 MoSHE

ICT device and tools procurement

and ICT related HR policies

Strategy 3 and 4 2021 MoSHE, MFD and Civil service

Commission

Intellectual property right policy Strategy 3 2021 MoSHE and Ethiopian Intellectual

property Office

Taxation policy for ICT equipment

and services

Strategy 3 and 4 2021 MoSHE and MT&I

b) Developing Digital Skills Framework

Another important element that was identified as a starting point for effective and efficient digital

economy is standardizing the digital skills of citizens. The digital skills framework set out key

digital competences and proficiency level that enable individuals, education and training

institutions, and employers to identify the skills that are required in different occupations. It can

help the nation to raise the digital skills proficiency level of the population. The digital skills

framework can support the overall skills framework. Though developing or adapting the

framework requires different stakeholders’ involvement and negotiation, this digital country action

plan outline the steps required to adapt these frameworks so that it will, be relevant and meaningful

to the stakeholders. The institutions and employers also need to have a guiding framework to

evaluate and plan their digital needs. This is done while there is a framework for digital skills.

Thus, the objective of this sub strategy is to adapt a digital skills framework for all professions,

educators, and ICT professionals until 2021.

Table 2: digital skills framework

Activity Related to DSCAP Timeline Responsible Body

Adapting Digital Skills

framework

Strategy 2 and 3 2021 MoSHE and Civil Service

Commission

c) Developing Digital Skills Assessments


4

To make the training and education locally and globally competitive and monitor the progress in

digital skills acquisition amongst higher education and TVET institutions, assessing the standard

is very basic. The assessment of the digital skills can be done based on the digital skills framework

adopted by the country and used as precondition for institutions funding and ratings. This

assessment has to be at institution level and at the level of overall populations at the fundamental

and intermediate level. The assessment indicator and instrument should be mapped with the digital

skills framework and assessment should be conducted in a regular base so that changes can be

measured over time. What is more special assessment of advanced digital skills can be done in

selected areas such as engineering and computer science so that national standards can be

examined through. Thus, the digital skills assessment is anticipated at institutional, national, and

international level. To make assessment part of the digital skills country action, a policy for

assessments will be developed, aiming to certify 100% of the HE and TVETs community until

2030 at institutional and national level. Until 2025, up to 50% of the students at every HEIs and

TVETs will be assessed. In addition, 50% of the educators in HEIs, TVETs, and ICT professionals’

digital skill will be assessed. Similarly, in order to know where Ethiopian graduates and the ICT

professionals are in relation to the world, there will be three stages of assessment that will be 5%

at 2023, 5% in 2026 and 10% in 2030. The first round of the 2023 assessment will help to see the

effect of the change in the curriculum and used to monitor the effect of strategy 2 and 3 of DSCAP.

Table 3: digital skills Assessment

Digital Skills Assessment 2024 2026 2030 Responsible body

National level

students

educators

10%

25%

50%

50%

100%

100%

HERQA

International level

% students

% of ICT professionals

5%

5%

5%

5%

20%

20%

HERQA/ contracted body

4.1.3. Activities

The targets set for Strategy 1 are a bit ambitious but must be done to make the implementation of

the other strategies (strategy 2-5) effective and efficient. Table 4 presents detailed list of activities

to be accomplished to under each sub strategy: sub strategy 1 enabling policies, sub strategy 2

Digital skills framework and Sub-Strategy 3 digital skills assessment. Specific timelines are for

each activity so that implementation and follow up will be time bound. Thus, table 4 indicates list

of activities, timeline, deliverable, and responsible body DSCAP for each strategy implementation.


5

Table 4: List of Activities, timeline, and deliverables

No Activity Description Timeline Deliverables Responsible body

Digital Skills policy and Strategy for Higher Education and TVETS

1 Develop Terms of reference for

Digital skills Policy and Strategies

for Higher Education and TVET

revision

Oct.2020 Terms of

Reference and call

for consultants

MoSHE

2 Consultant recruitment Nov.2020 Contract with

consultants signed

MoSHE

3 Desk review of Higher education

and TVET policies, Education

policy and Education Law

Nov.2020 Current status of

Higher education

and TVET policies

(TVET Agency, HEI,

TVETs)

Approval and aligning this

policy with other policies

will be task of MoSHE

4 Stakeholder discussion on draft

Policy and Strategy

Nov.2020 HEI, TVET Agencies,

HESC and HERQA

coordinated by MoSHE

5 Approval of Digital Skills policy

and Strategies for Higher

Education and TVET

Jan.2021 Approved Digital

skills Policy and

Strategies for

Higher Education

and TVETs

MoSHE and All Higher

Education and TVET

institutions

Interoperability policy

1 Develop a Terms of Reference for

Interoperability policy

development

January2021 Terms of reference MoSHE and MInT

2 Consultant recruitment January 2021 Consultants MoSHE

3 Develop Interoperability policy

and guideline

Feb.2021 Draft

Interoperability

Policy for Higher

Education and

TVETS

MoSHE

4 Approve and Implement

Interoperability Policy

Feb.2021 Interoperability

Policy

MInT and MoSHE

Universal Access Fund Policy

1 Develop a term of reference to

review available Universal access

fund policies

Feb.2021 Terms of reference

to develop a

national Universal

access fund policy

MoSHE and MInT

2 Recruit consultants Feb.2021 Draft Universal

Access Fund

policy

Consultants

3 Conduct Stakeholder discussion on

the draft Universal Access fund

policy

March 2021 Revised Universal

Access fund Policy

MoSHE, MoF and MInT

4 Approve National Universal access

fund policy

April- May 2021 Universal Access

Fund policy

MoSHE, MoF and MInT

Cross border data use policy

12 Develop terms of reference to

recruit consultants for Cross

Jan. 2021 Terms of reference

for Cross boarder

data Use Policy

MoSHE and MInT


6


border data use policy

development

13 Assessment of International

experience on Cross border data

use policy and draft national policy

Feb.2021 Draft Cross border

data use policy

Consultants

14 Discussion with stakeholders on

the daft Cross border data use

policy

March-April 2021 Cross border data

use policy

MoSHE, MInT and

Ethiopian Communication

Agency

15 Approval of Cross border data use

policy

June- July2021 Cross border data

use policy

Ethiopian Communication

Agency

National Research and Education Network Policy

1 Develop a Terms of reference for

consultants to the National

Research and Education Network

policy and practice

Jan.2021 Terms of reference MoSHE

2 Recruit consultants Feb.2021 Inception report MoSHE

3 Review the existing policy and

procedures and draft an up-to-date

policy that guides EthERNet

Feb.2021 EthERNet Policy MoSHE

4 Develop EthERNet Roles and

Responsibilities

March2021 EthERNet Roles

and

Responsibilities

Consultants

5 Develop EthERNet’s Policy and

Structure

March2021 EthERNet Policy

and Structure

Consultants and MoSHE

6 Approve EthERNet’s Policy and

Structure

April 2021 Revised EthERNet

Policy and

Structure

MoSHE -Council of

Ministers

ICT device and tools procurement and ICT related HR policies

20 Develop a Terms of reference to

recruit consultants

Feb.2021 Terms of reference MoSHE, MInT and

procurement agency

21 Review existing procurement and

HR policies

Feb.2021 Understanding of

the Current

policies

Consultants

22 Develop ICT device and tools

procurement and ICT related HR

policies

March2021

Draft ICT device

and tools

procurement and

ICT related HR

policies

MoSHE, MInT and

procurement agency

Stakeholder discussion on draft

ICT devices and tools procurement

and ICT related HR policies

April2021 Policy for ICT

devices and Tools

procurement and

Policy for ICT

related HR

MoSHE, MInT, Civil

Service Commission and

procurement agency

Approval of Policy for ICT

devices and Tools procurement

and Policy for ICT related HR

May 2021 Approved policies MoSHE – Council of

Ministers

Intellectual property right policy

Develop Terms of reference to

recruit Consultants

March2021 Terms of reference MoSHE

Develop Intellectual property right

policy

April 2021 Draft Intellectual

property right

policy

Consultants in consultation

with MInT and Ethiopian

Intellectual property office


7


Approval of the Intellectual

property right policy

May/ June2021 Intellectual

property right

policy

MoSHE- Council of

Ministers

Taxation policy for ICT equipment and services

26 Develop Terms of reference to

recruit consultants

March 2021 Terms of reference MoSHE

27 Recruit consultants April 2021 Signed contract MoSHE and MT&I

28 Review existing taxation policy

and develop draft ICT equipment

and services taxation policy

May- June2021 Draft Taxation

policy for ICT

equipment and

services

MoSHE, MT& I and

Customs Authority

Approval of Taxation policy for

ICT equipment and services

July 2021 Taxation policy for

ICT equipment

and services

MoSHE – Council of

Ministers

Developing digital Skills framework

40 Develop Terms of reference to

recruit consultant to adapt digital

skills framework

Jan. 2021 Terms of reference MoSHE

Conduct supply side and demand

side digital skills status

Feb 2021 Digital skills gap

analysis

Consultants

41 Develop or adapt the appropriate

Digital Skills Framework for all

professions

March 2021 Digital skills

framework for all

profession

Consultants

42 Stakeholder dialogue on draft

digital skills framework

March 2021 Digital skills

framework

MoSHE, Civil Service

Commission, Higher

Education and TVET

institutions and employers

Approval of National digital skills

framework

June 2021 Digital Skills

framework for

Ethiopia

MoSHE- Council of

Ministers

Digital Skills Assessment

Develop Terms of reference and

recruit consultants

Sept.2023 Consultant

recruitment

MoSHE-HERQA

43 Develop digital skills assessment

tools at National level

Sept 2024 Assessment Tools MoSHE/HERQA

44 Conduct National digital skills

assessment

Jan.2024/2026/2030 Digitals skill

assessment

MoSHE/ HERQA and

Institutions

45 Conduct International digital skills

Assessment

Jan.2024/2026/2030 Digital skills

Assessment

MoSHE and contracted

consultants

46 Certifying those assessed April

2024/2026/2030

Certification

standard

MoSHE/ Institutions

4.1.4. Implementation Timeline

For the list of the activities identified for this strategy, an implementation timeline set for Sub

strategy one -Enabling policies and sub strategy two- Digital skills framework is year 2020-2021.

The polices and framework are fundamental for the other DSCAP strategies and investment should

be made in putting these sub strategies into action in the given time. As a result, the short-term


8

activities are approving this digital country action plan, setting up a proper institutions arrangement

so that terms of references are developed as soon as possible, and consultants will be recruited.

Activities to be implemented Timeline Responsible body

Digital skills policy for HE and TVETs 2020 MoSHE

Interoperability policy 2021 MoSHE and MInT

Universal access fund policy 2021 MoSHE and MInT

Cross border data use policy 2021 MoSHE and Ethiopian Communication Authority


Network Policy

2021 MoSHE

ICT device and tools procurement and

ICT related HR policies

2021 MoSHE, MFD and Civil service Commission

Intellectual property right policy 2021 MoSHE and Ethiopian Intellectual property

Office

Taxation policy for ICT equipment and

services

2021 MoSHE and MT&I

Adapting Digital Skills framework 2021 MoSHE and Civil Service Commission

Digital Skills Assessment 2024-26

Accordingly, to achieve the stated goals the main short-term activities are

A. Securing funding to develop the enabling policies and digital skills framework

B. Developing terms of references for each policy development activity

C. Recruiting consultants

D. Developing communication and monitoring scheme

4.1.5. Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

The following table shows the key performance indicators for this strategy.

Table 5: Key Performance Indicators for strategy 1

Strategy Indicators Baseline 2020/21 2024 2026 2030

Enabling

Policies

Digital skills policy for HE and TVETs Draft 100%

Interoperability policy None 100%

Universal access fund policy None 100%

Cross border data use policy None 100%


Network Policy

Draft 100%

ICT device and tools procurement and

ICT related HR policies

None 100%

Intellectual property right policy None 100%

Taxation policy for ICT equipment and

services

None 100%


9

Digital skills

framework

Adapted Digital Skills framework None 100%

Digital Skills

Assessment

National level

% students

%educators

None Preparation

10%

25%

50%

50%

100%

100%

International level

% students

% of ICT professionals

None Preparation

5%

5%

5%

5%

20%

20%

4.1.6. Budget Requirement

In order to put these activities in practice and make the basic policy guidelines in place the

following budget (in thousands of Birr) is proposed as shown in the table below.

Cost of Implementation of Strategy 1 (in thousands)

Sub-strategies -

DSCAP

Total Budget for Strategy 1 in thousands of Birrs

2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2025 –

Year 5

2028 –

Year 8

2030 –

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

1.1 Establish enabling

policies and

regulatory

framework 4,800

15,600

-

-

- 20,400,

1.2 Digital Skills

Framework

9,000 7,800

-

-

- 16,800

1.3 Digital Skills

Assessment

-

-

35,360

40,000

68,000 143,360

Total for Strategy 1 13,800 23,400 35,360 40,000 68,000 180,560


10

4.2. Section-II: Strategy 2 - Reform of Digital Skills Programs

The Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategic plan emphasizes the importance of digital skills by stating

“Digital skills are crucial to enable current and future workers (especially youth) to meet the

employment requirements of a digital economy, embrace innovation and help maintain a

competitive edge.”1. The document also proposed 22 prioritized projects that helps in strengthening

the digital ecosystem of the country. The implementation of these projects cannot be realized

without human resource with advanced and highly specialized level of digital skills. The human

resource at these skill levels has to equip itself with state-of-the-art knowledge in the digital

ecosystem and has to be competent and ready enough to cope-up with the fast-growing technology

in the domain. This requires a continuous review and reform of digital skills programs in Higher

Education (HE) and TVET institutions.

Goal No. 11 of the “Ten-year high-level strategic plan”2 of the Ministry of Science and Higher

Education (MoSHE) states that it is critical to “. . . produce digitally competent graduates and

citizen and improve the digital infrastructure to support education, administration, and research

related activities”. Its further states that: developing enabling policies and standards for digital

skills framework, making timely updates to digital skill programs, enhancing the use of

technologies for education, research, and management activities, availing high-speed broadband

Internet to HE and TVET institutions, and implementing capacity building and

transformation/business process reengineering activities; can enhance digital skills and use of the

technology for national development.

Digital Skills create the ability “… to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate,

evaluate and create information safely and appropriately”3. The target of digital skills

development is for increased availability of digitally competent workforce and digitally literate

citizens and for enabling every citizen, business, and government to participate in the digital

economy. For proper realization of the digital skills, it is necessary that a digital skills framework

can set out key digital competences and proficiency levels thus enabling individuals, education

and training institutions, and employers to identify the skills that are required in different

occupations. Due to these reasons, many countries across the world are adopting digital skills

frameworks to raise the level of digital skills proficiency in their population. The World Bank

suggests to developing countries to consider adapting existing frameworks such as the EU

DigComp 2.1, the UNESCO Digital Literacy Global Framework, and the European e-Competence

Framework (e-CF) for ICT professionals. Implementing sub strategy two of Strategy one is

developing digital skills framework which will be a guide for the reform of digital programs.

1 Digital Ethiopia 2025, the FDRE, 2020. 2 Ten Year High-Level Strategic Plan, MoSHE, FDRE, 2020. 3 The World Bank DS Programs Guidebook, WB, 2019


11

MoSHE will develop the digital skills framework based on best practices and considering the trend

of development in the technology. Then, it will integrate the three levels of digital skills:

intermediate level, advanced level, and highly specialized levels to be critically considered in the

digital programs reform for HE and TVET institutions. These three levels of digital skills are

associated to the digital skills required to be learnt by the students of different educational levels

in HE and TVET institutions. These skills correspond to all non-IT students, students in the IT

related fields in the undergraduate programs, and students in the IR related MSc and PhD

programs.

Strategy 2 of the Digital Skills Country Action Plan therefore deals with the reform of the digital

skills programs in higher education (HE) and TVET institutions in Ethiopia. To be able to plan the

reform and to deal with the implementation of this strategy, relevant baseline data are collected

from secondary sources in two categories: the supply side data and the demand side data. The

supply side data collection revealed the number of HEIs and TVETs by category, the enrollment

status in each category, and the number of academic staff therein. The demand indicator data is

used to visualize the targets in the planning. Then, sub-strategies are identified corresponding to

the goals of the strategy and key activities to be accomplished are identified. Finally, the key

performance indicators and the budget requirements at a high-level are projected. The plan for the

activities in strategy 2 depend on development of the strategy 1 particularly sub strategy one and

two: enabling policies and digital skills framework. The action plans in Strategy 2 considers the

facts and the action plans presented in strategy 3 and strategy 4. The facts and the enrollment data

collected in strategy 2 also served as an input to the planning in strategies 3 and 4.


The baseline data serves as a basis for comparison with the subsequently acquired or to be

projected data. Without visualizing the baseline data, it will be difficult to perceive the magnitude

of the current requirements and to predict the future needs. To get the baseline data, different

resources and reports had been explored. At an instance where up-to-date data is not found,

considering the year the latest available data is collected, best estimates for some of the current

and the future data status are given based on the trend of change over time since the published data

collection date.

a) Supply Side

The supply side data collection revealed that there are currently 1,906 HEIs and TVET institutions,

of which 1,568 are TVET institutions, 38 are Colleges of Teachers Education (CTE); 50 are

government universities; and 250 are private colleges and universities. In all these institutions,

1,792,386 students were enrolled during the academic year 2018/19. Table 6 shows the baseline

data on number of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) including government HEIs, non-

government / private HEIs, and all TVETs. Table 7 presents the total enrollment in these

institutions in the indicated year and category, while Table 8 presents the number of academic staff


12

in the listed category of HEIs and TVETs and shows that there is a total of 77,850 academic staff.

On Table 7, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for Higher Education undergraduate program is

reported to be 9.4%. However, the GER for TVET level and College of Teachers Education is not

found in the official statistical publications of the ministry. What is used commonly at MoSHE to

know the rate of increase in student enrollment is the Annual Average Growth Rate (AAGR) of

enrollment. Thus, the AAGR measure of the last nine years as published in the 2018/19 annual

statistical abstract of MoSHE is used to project the enrollment in the public HEIs in the next 10

years of the action plan.

Table 6: Number of Institutions in HEIs and TVETs in Ethiopia

Indicator Description Indicator Baseline Year Source of Data

Number of Higher Education

Institutions:

a) TVET institutions (ISCED4 level

4)

Government TVETs 673 2019-20

FDRE, TVET Agency Report,

2012 E.C. (2019/20)

Private TVETs 838 2019-20 FDRE, TVET Agency Report,

2012 E.C. (2019/20)

Non-Gov. TVETs 57 2019-20 FDRE, TVET Agency Report,

2012 E.C. (2019/20)

Total Number of TVET Institutions 1,568 2019-20 FDRE, TVET Agency Report,

2012 E.C. (2019/20)

b) Institutions offering short-cycle

tertiary programs (ISCED level 5)

College of Teachers

Education (CTE)-

Public

38 2018-19

Education Statistics Annual

Abstract, MoE, 2011 E.C.

(2018/19)

c) Universities (ISCED levels 6-8)

Public Universities 50 2018-19 Higher Education Statistics Annual

Abstract 2011 E.C. (2018/19)

Private Universities

(ISCED levels 6-8) 5 2019-20

Certified private higher education

institutions and their programs,

HERQA, MoSHE, 2012 EC.

(2019/20)

Private Colleges

(ISCED levels 6-7) 245 2019-20

Certified private higher education

institutions and their programs,

HERQA, MoSHE, 2012 EC.

(2019/20)

Total Number of HEIs and TVETs 1,906

Table 7: Enrollment and Gross Enrollment Ratio in HEIs and TVETs in Ethiopia

Indicator Description Indicator Baseline Year Source of Data

Higher Education (Undergraduate)

Gross Enrolment Ratio (ISCED

level 6)

ISCED level 6 9.4% 2015/16 Education Statistics Annual Abstract

2011 E.C. (2018/19), MoE

Number of students in Public

TVET (ISCED level 4) TVET Level I - V 417,724 2019/20

FDRE, TVET Agency Report, 2012 E.C.

(Sem. I - 2019/20)

Number of students5 in Private

TVETs (ISCED level 4) TVET Level I - V 175,283 2019/20

FDRE, TVET Agency Report, 2012 E.C.

(Sem. I - 2019/20)

4 International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 5 In all, non-government and private TVET institutions


13

Number of students in public non-

university tertiary Institutions

(ISCED level 5)

College of

Teachers

Education (CTE)

208,299 2018-19 Education Statistics Annual Abstract,

2011 E.C. (2018/19), MoE

Number of undergraduate students

in Gov. / Public Universities

(ISCED level 6)

STEM

(Band6 1-4) 511,189 2018-19

Higher Education Statistics Annual

Abstract 2011 E.C. (2018/19), MoSHE

G - Band 5 158,376 2018-19 Higher Education Statistics Annual


G - Band 6 183,180 2018-19 Higher Education Statistics Annual


Number of undergraduate students

in Non-Gov. Universities /

Colleges (ISCED level 6)

All Private 138,335 2017/18 Education Statistics Annual Abstract,

2010 E.C. (2017/18), MoE

Total population of students in HEIs and TVETs 1,792,386

Table 8: Number of Academic Staff in HEIs and TVETs in Ethiopia

Indicator Description Indicator Quantity Year Source of Data

Number of Teachers in public

non-university tertiary (ISCED

level 5)

College of

Teachers

Education (CTE)-

Public

3,158 2018-19 Education Statistics Annual

Abstract, MoE, 2011 E.C.

(2018/19)

Number of Teachers/Trainers in

TVET (ISCED level 4) TVET Level I - V 27,899 2019/20

Higher Education Statistics

Annual Abstract 2012 EC.

(2019/20), MoSHE

Number of Academic Staff in

Gov. Universities ISCED level 6 - 8 41,993 2019/20

Higher Education Statistics


(2019/20), MoSHE

Number of Academic Staff in

Private Universities/Colleges

(Full Time staff only)

ISCED level 6 - 7 4,800 2019/20 Higher Education Statistics


(2019/20), MoSHE

Total Number of Academic Staff in HEIs and

TVETs 77,850

b) Demand Side

Demand indicator data is collected mostly from secondary data sources while the rest is acquired

from stakeholders through informal communications. Indicators of demand for Digital Skills from

principal use sectors show that jobs and needs of users will likely expand in the coming years. The

Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategic plan of the government of Ethiopia and other service sectors

indicate that e-Government services will be expanding at a very high proportion in the next five

years and will cover different sectors opening up many job and business opportunities. The telecom

sector is expanding creating opportunities for new services in e-learning, e-commerce, and other

many electronic services. Mobile data service is expected to increase from 22 million in 2019 to

27 million in 2021. Jobs at the telecom sector and banking sector will be requiring more IT

6 Band 1: Engineering & Technology

Band 2: Natural and Computational Sciences

Band 3: Medicine and Health Sciences

Band 4: Agriculture and Life Sciences

Band 5: Business and Economics

Band 6: Social Sciences & Humanities


14

professionals at advanced and highly specialized levels. In the different public enterprises, some 9

million jobs will be requiring advanced or highly specialized digital skills.

The media and entertainment sector are becoming more and more dependent on digital services

and will be creating jobs requiring digital skills. The transport and logistics sector transporting

goods from port to the different centers in the country and expansion in the export sector is

requiring digital skills. The transport sector transporting the public at every instance on daily bases

is using digitally skilled employee. A single Uber like Taxi service (called RIDE) in the capital

city is dispatching more than twenty thousand taxis daily. More number of such Taxi services are

coming to the market requiring both the service provider and the service receiver to have at least

an intermediate level of digital skills. Practically, the trend of development shows that there is

practically no work sector that does not require digital skills.

The manufacturing and the construction sectors currently involving some 8 million work force is

getting more and more dependent on machines and devices that are using digital technologies, as

it is the case in the developed nations. This, therefore, requires a work force that is competent in

digital skills at all levels. Table 9 and 10 provide some indicators on demand for digital skills in

the different sectors of the economy of the country.


15

Table 9: Indicators of Demand for Digital Skills from Principal Use Sectors (Jobs and Users)

Potential to expand in

next 5 years

Types of digital skills that

will be required

Key Use

Sectors

Area

Specify whether

users, jobs or

number of

service

providers

Number of users, number of

jobs or number of service

providers.

(Very likely, somewhat

likely, not likely)

(Indicate which of the

four proficiency levels

from the Digital Skills

Framework - Basic,

Intermediate, Advanced,

Source

e-Government services Users

# of e-gov. services = 157.

in 2015; # Internet users:

22, 740,000 in 2019

Very likely All levels

Ethiotelecom (2019) &

Ethiopia E-Government

Benchmarking Report, 2015

by KPMG

Government

Government jobs requiring advanced

or highly proficient digital skills. This

includes all levels of the government

including local and city governments.

Jobs 8.7 million Very likely All levelsELMA (2019) giz - Labor

Market Study

Public enterprise jobs requiring

advanced or highly proficient digital

skills. This includes all pubic services

such as police, utilities (water,

electricity, waste, roads etc.) as well

as state-owned enterprises.

Users 9,086,000 population need

digital skills.Very likely All levels

ELMA (2019) giz - Labor

Market Study

Smart phones Users 12,379,927 Very likely Intermediate

First Half Business

Performance Report,

Ethiotelecom (2018/19)

Mobile Internet Users 14,500,000 Very likely Intermediate

First Half Business

Performance Report, ethio

telecom 2011 EC (2018/19)

Telecommunic

ations

Current number of employees at

mobile phone providersJobs

22,000 (total at Ethio-

telecom)Very likely All levels

Report of Ethiotelecom

(2019/20)

Current number of mobile money

accountsUsers About 5 million Very likely Intermediate

No published data, estimate

is given

Fixed Internet Users 212,200 Very likely All levelsEthiotelecom (2019/20

Report)

Number of farmers implementing

smart irrigation technology.Users NA Likely Advanced, Intermediate

No published data found to

quantify

Number of active/usable tractors in-

countryService provider NA Very likely Advanced, Intermediate


quantify

AgricultureNumber of food processing or food

storage companies in-countryService provider NA Very likely Advanced, Intermediate


quantify

Numbers of companies offering drone

surveying of agricultural land.Service provider NA Likely Advanced, Intermediate


quantify

Number of active MRI or CT scan

machines for use in-country.Service provider < 100 Very likely Advanced, Intermediate


quantify

Healthcare Jobs requiring digital skills in the

areas of health administration

including electronic health

management systems.

Jobs 491, 372 Very likely Advanced, IntermediateEthiopian Academy of

Sciences (EAS) 2016

Number of installed laptops and

tablets in schools in countryService provider NA Very likely Advanced, Intermediate


quantify

Education Jobs requiring digital skills - teaching Jobs 688,536 Very likely All levels

Education Statistics Annual

Abstract 2011 E.C.

(2018/19). MoE.

Jobs requiring digital skills -

education administrationJobs 250,000 Very likely All levels

Ethiopian Academy of

Sciences (EAS) 2016

Jobs requiring digital skills Jobs 448,759 Very likely All levels Ethiopian Academy of

Sciences (EAS) 2016

Banking

Number of users of banking services Service provider35% of Adults in 2017 had

Bank AccountsVery likely Intermediate

M. Bessir, Financial

inclusion in Ethiopia: 10

takeaways from the latest

Findex, June 18, 2018

Number of insurance companies

operating in-countryService provider 17 Very likely Advanced, Intermediate

National Bank of Ethiopia-

Annual Report 2018-19

Mobile-banking Users About 4 million Very likely Advanced, IntermediateNo published data, estimate

is given

Number of international cities

reachable via a direct flight from the

capital city

Service provider 23 Very likely Advanced, Intermediate

https://www.ethiopianairlin

es.com/aa/

book/network/domestic

Transport and

Logistics

Annual volume of containers (if there

is a port)Service provider NA Very likely Advanced, Intermediate


quantify

Number of active drivers in-country

on Uber and all Uber-style shared

mobility platforms

Jobs > 20,000 Very likely IntermediateNo published data found,

estimate given

E-commerceNumber of delivery persons operating

in-countryService provider NA Very likely Intermediate


quantifyBusiness

Process

O utsourcing

(BPO )

Number of jobs in the BPO field Jobs NA Very likely Advanced, IntermediateNo published data found to

quantify

Media and

entertainment

Number of jobs at radio and TV

broadcasters operating at the national

and state/provincial level

Jobs NA Very likely Advanced, IntermediateNo published data to give

the number

ConstructionNumber of jobs requiring advanced or

highly specialized digital skillsJobs 1,370,609 Very likely Advanced, Intermediate EAS (2019)

ServicesNumber of jobs requiring advanced or

highly specialized digital skillsJobs 18,686,905 Very likely Advanced, Intermediate


Market Study

ManufacturingNumber of jobs requiring advanced or

highly specialized digital skillsJobs 6,329,000 Very likely Advanced, Intermediate


Market Study

Indicators of demand for digital skills


16

Table 10: Indicators of demand for digital skills in ICT and Telecommunications Industries

Sector Sub-sector

Current

number

of jobs

Potential to expand in next 5 years

(Very likely, somewhat likely, not likely)

Technician Professional Senior

professional Advanced

Highly

specialized

Software

development NK7 Very likely Very likely Very likely Very likely Very likely

ICT Hardware NK Very likely Very likely Very likely Very likely Very likely

Computer Network NK Very likely Very likely Very likely Very likely Very likely

Mobile towers NK likely likely likely likely likely

Telecoms Fiber optic

networks NK likely likely likely likely likely


The main goal of Strategy 2 is: reforming the digital skills programs in Higher Education and

TVET institutions in Ethiopia. In addition to the fundamental or the intermediate level digital skills

that citizen usually acquire through formal or informal ways; digital skills are taught at three

different higher levels in Ethiopian higher education. These are: digital skills training at BSc level

(a four-year training), at MSc level (two-year training after a BSc in IT related fields) and a four

year or more training for PhD after an MSc in IT related fields. Until the details of the contents are

specified in the country’s digital skills framework as stated in strategy 1, the general guideline of

the UNESCO digital skills framework is considered as a reference to associate the levels of digital

skills programs in the county. Thus, the four years of the BSc level training is considered as an

Advanced-Level digital skill, and the MSc and PhD level programs in IT fields are categorized as

highly specialized digital skills considering the curriculums of the programs. In the two years of

the MSc level training, in practice, students deal with specialized knowledge acquisition and do a

master’s thesis work that requires the creation of knowledge or an innovative practical result which

takes a standard work of one academic year. While in the PhD programs in the country are designed

to require a one year highly specialized and research-oriented courses followed by three years of

intensive research work that involves knowledge creation and at least two scientific publications

in reputable journals or recognized international conference proceedings.

Therefore, to attain the goals of strategy 2 in the context of the country’s higher education system,

the following five sub-strategies are planned to be realized.

• Sub-Strategy-2.1: Reform and implement Intermediate Level Digital Skills for all

Students in HE and TVET institutions,

• Sub-Strategy-2.2: Reform of the undergraduate programs in IT related fields

(Advanced Level Digital Skills),

7 NK- Not Known or No published data is available.


17

• Sub-Strategy-2.3: Reform of the highly specialized programs in IT related fields,

(graduate level programs),

• Sub-Strategy-2.4: Reform of Key TVET Courses/ programs, and

• Sub-Strategy-2.5: Implement Rapid Skill Programs and online Training for Digital

Skills.

Accordingly, in Sub-strategy 2.1, it is planned to train about 1.2 million students in HEIs and

TVETs, of which about 315,000 students are in TVET institutions, at intermediate level digital

skills by 2025 and about 5.1 million HE and TVET students by 2030 (see Table 11). The projected

enrollments for the year 2025 and 2030 are computed considering the Annual Average Growth

Rate (AAGR) of enrollment of 10% in the undergraduate program, which is the average growth

rate during the last nine years8.

Table 11: High-level Goals of the Sub-strategy 2.1 in the Time Frame Planned.

No. Sub-Strategy Grouping Baseline By 2025 By 2030

2.1 Intermediate level Digital Skills for all students in HEIs and

TVETs irrespective of their field of studies.

a) % of institutions offering intermediate

level digital skills training

Gov. Universities 50 50% 100%

Gov. TVETs 674 30% 100%

Private-TVETs 838 30% 100%

Non-Gov. TVETs 57 30% 100%

NG-U/Colleges 250 30% 100%

CTEs 38 30% 100%

b) Number of students enrolled in above

institutions who will receive

intermediate level skills

G–STEM (Band 1 – 4) 511,189 452,801 1,458,482

G - Band 5 158,376 140,286 451,865

G - Band 6 183,180 162,257 522,634

G, P &NG-TVET 593,007 315,164 1,691,918

NG-U/Colleges 138,335 73,521 394,686

G-CTE 208,299 110,704 594,301

c) Total number of students 1,792,386 1,254,734 5,113,886

In Sub-Strategy 2.2, which is related to undergraduate IT related programs, update of curriculums

and training of students in the reformed advanced digital skills programs will be made. In this sub-

strategy, it is planned to enroll some 82 thousand students in IT related fields in 2025 and more

than 134 thousand students in the fields by 2030 (See table 12 below).

8 Higher Education Statistics Annual Abstract 2011 EC. (2018/19), MoSHE


18

Table 12: High-Level Goals of the Sub-Strategy 2.2 (reform of the undergraduate programs in IT fields) in the

Time Frame Planned

No. Sub-Strategy Grouping Baseline

(2018/19)

By

2025

By 2030

2.2 Advanced Digital Skills for students in Electrical

Eng., Computer Science, and other related fields9.

a) Number of Universities that will update

courses

All Gov. Unis10 50 50 50

b) Number of courses that will be updated11 All Unis 30 15 10

c) Number of courses that will be developed12 New Courses NA 3 6

d) Number of students that will be enrolled in

new courses (or new programs)

With average

estimate NA 2,000 5,000

e) Number of students that will be enrolled in

updated courses

Based on AAGR

of enrollment 45,470 82,349 134,157

In sub-strategy 2.2, it is projected that HEIs will enroll students in the different IT related fields

such as in Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, and other related

programs as presented on Table 13 below. The numbers are based on the baseline data collected

in 2013/14 and considers the annual average growth rate of enrollment (which is currently 10%)

to project the enrollment for the academic years of 2024/25 and 2029/30.

Table 13: Projected Enrollment in Undergraduate Programs in the IT Related Fields for 2025 & 2030

No. Specific Programs

Total Enro.

2006 EC

(2013/14)

Enrolment

(2018/19)

Projected

2025 GC

Projected

2030 GC

1 Computer Science 10,594 17,062 30,226 48,679

2 Information Systems / Science 3,607 5,809 10,291 16,574

3 Information Technology 6,382 10,278 18,209 29,325

4 Software Engineering 542 873 1,546 2,490

5 Electrical & Computer Eng. 2,723 4,385 7,769 12,512

6 Computer & Engineering 1,207 1,944 3,444 5,546

7 Geo-Information System 168 271 479 772

8 Information and Communication Tech.

(ICT) 233 375

665 1,071

9 Library and Information Science 154 248 439 708

10 Business Information System 1,223 1,970 3,489 5,620

11 Management Info. Sys. (MIS) 717 1,155 2,046 3,295

Total Enrollment 27,550 44,370 78,603 126,592 IT related fields in all 4th Generation Government Universities13 1,100 1,746 2,565 Additional enrollment in preferred programs or in new programs NA 2,000 5,000 Grand Total Enrollment (Gov. Universities + Private HEIs in IT) 45,470 82,349 134,157

9 This refers to the programs such as Electoral & Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Technology, Software Engineering, etc.

10 There is at least one at most four Computer Science and related programs in all government universities.

11 There are about 30 courses in the BSc programs of the IT related fields. Some 15 of them are projected to be updated before 2025 and an additional 10 will have to

be updated until 2030 considering the continuous technological development in the fields. 12 New specialty programs have to be introduced based on the demand of the new digital economy. 13 Enrollment of the 4th generation public universities were not included in the baseline data of 2013/14.


19

In the implementation of sub-strategy 2.3, graduate programs in IT related fields have to also

reform their programs to the level set as highly specialized digital skills. Considering the 20%

annual average growth rate of enrollment in the graduate programs for the last eight years, it is

projected that student enrollment in the MSc level trainings in IT related fields will raise to more

than four thousand in 2025 and that number will increase to more than ten thousand in 2030. In

the PhD programs of IT related fields, where research and innovation are the primary focus, it is

projected that the number of student enrollment will raise to 241 in 2025 and that number will

increase to 485 in 2030, considering the 15% annual average growth rate of enrollment at this level

of training (see Table 14 below).

Table 14: High-level Goals of the Sub-strategy 2.3 (reform of the MSc and PhD programs in IT related fields)

in the Time Frame Planned

No. Sub-Strategy Grouping Baseline

(2018/19)

By

2025

By

2030

2.3 Highly specialized digital skills for students in CE,

Computer Science, Information Systems, and

other related fields

MSc and PhD Programs

that deal in highly

specialized digital skills

a) Number of Universities that will update courses 16 20 33+

b) Number of courses that will be updated 10 5 6

c) Number of courses that will be newly developed NA 4 8

d) Number of students that will be enrolled in

updated courses in MSc programs in IT

1,400 4,180 10,402

e) Number of students that will be enrolled in new

courses in MSc programs.

NA 360 480

f) Number of students in PhD level training in IT

related fields14

120 241 485

TVET institutions, which train students with skills specific to the needs of agriculture,

manufacturing, and the service sectors, also reform their programs to equip their students with the

required level of digital skills. TVET students have to acquire intermediate level digital skills

before they complete their studies. The number of students that will be enrolled in updated courses

and acquire intermediate level digital skills will reach 315,164 in 2025 and by 2030 that number

will increase to 1,691,918 (see Table 15). Expanding the ICT programs in TVETs and enabling

the students in the program to better meet the market demand is an important activity that has to

be realized.

Furthermore, equipping trainees of the College of Teachers Education (CTE) with the intermediate

digital skills is critically important, since it is this group of trainees who can impact the more than

20 million school children in pre-primary, elementary and junior secondary schools in the country.

14 Currently, some four public universities are offering PhD level training in IT related fields.


20

Table 15: High-level Goals of the Sub-Strategy 2.4 (reform of TVET Courses) in the Time Frame Planned


2.4 Intermediate level skills for students in TVET

institutions

a) Number of TVET institutions that will

update courses

Government Owned

TVET Inst. 674 308 1,168

Private TVET Inst. 837 283 995

Non-Government

TVET Inst. 57 17 57

b) Total TVET institutions that will update

courses

All TVET

Institutions 1568 608 2,220

c) Number of courses / programs that will be

updated 1 3 5

d) Number of courses that will be newly

developed NA 2 4

e) Number of students that will be enrolled in

updated courses15 593,007 315,164 1,691,918

In addition to the formal classroom-based trainings, rapid skilling programs, online trainings,

blended course offerings and certifications on selected digital skill types have to be introduced to

fill the skill gap in attaining the intermediate DS level of all students in HEIs and TVETs. This

will also help to overcome the semester course load and schedule congestions in many academic

programs, since online trainings can be made based on the convenience of the learner. Sub-

Strategy-2.5 deals with the introduction of online trainings, blended form of course offering and

rapid skill programs for enhancing the digital skills of students in HEIs and TVET institutions. To

realize this, detail review and planning on the requirements of digital skills in the different

disciplines in HEIs and TVETs, studies on the skill gap in the industries and the service sector in

the country, best practices on online trainings, and establishment of partnerships with online and

distance training organizations will have to be made. Based on this, the number of students that

will be enrolled in rapid skilling and online training programs in HEIs and TVETs is projected to

be more than 750 thousand in 2025 and that number will grow to more than 2.5 million by 2030

(see Table 16).

Table 16: High-level Goals of the Sub-Strategy 2.5 (Rapid Skilling Programs) in the Time Frame Planned


2.5 Rapid Skilling Programs:

• Number of students that will be

enrolled in Rapid Skilling and

online programs in HEI and TVETs

All HEIs and

TVET Institutions 1,792,386 > 1.2 million > 4.5 million

15 Based on the current and planned enrollment by TVET Agency, which is 589,950, and 1,057,934 by 2025 and 2030, respectively. Starting from the current almost

0%, it is assumed that 30% of TVET students will be enrolled in the updated courses by 2025 and 100% by 2030.


21

4.2.3. Activities

Achieving the intended goals of strategy 2 requires the right planning, a good organization, and

adequate funding and budgeting. It also needs the major conditions such as those presented below,

during the early period of the implementation:

• Access to digital devices to all students in HE and TVET institutions. The ministry in

collaboration with stakeholders will avail digital devices (such as Laptops, Tablets or

Smartphones) to students and faculty as part of the education program. Based on the situations,

different options (Laptops, tablets, Smart phones, etc.) have to be made available to students

so that they can buy with a reasonable price or have to be given a chance of loan to acquire

digital devices. Facilitating the process for a decent type of computing device to students and

staff will create a better learning and skill acquisition environment and help them to do their

level best to meet the present and the future digital skill needs.

• Free campus wide access to Internet. Wi-Fi everywhere and anytime within campus serves to

attain the purpose of digital skills development. Full access to Internet in every campus (or a

free campus wide connection 24/7) in HE and TVET institutions is a necessity.

• Appropriate number and qualification level of faculty in IT related fields. Increasing the

number and capacity of existing academic staff with highly specialized digital skills in IT fields

and staff in other fields with a minimum of intermediate digital skills is critical in the skill

development of students.

• Adequate level and type of course materials or content for in-class and online trainings. To

execute the reform of digital skill programs, appropriate content for the learning community

should be in place. There are plenty of online materials that are accessible free or with minimal

cost. Exploiting the available resource in addition to preparing tailored content for the desired

skill development has to be made.

• Introduce rapid skilling and certification programs. Introducing certification programs on key

digital skills and developing a testing and evaluation scheme for the same has to be given

importance. The design and development of course content for rapid skilling programs has to

be in place to support the formal digital skill programs.

The following list presents the list of activities in strategy 2.

Sub-

Strategy

Activity

a. Design the content of the Intermediate Level Digital Skills to be offered as common to all students

in HE and TVET institutions and identify the commonly practiced digital systems or tools in each

specific field of study.

a) Considering the existing fundamental course(s) design or reform the curriculum to the

level required and select pertinent tools for each specific program,

b) Prepare/ select content and method of delivery and assessment, and


22

Sub-

Strategy

Activity

c) Implement the training program to all students.

b. Reform of the undergraduate programs in IT Related fields (Advanced Level Digital Skills).

a) Review existing undergraduate level IT related programs in all HEIs,

b) Reform the curriculum to the level of Advanced Level Digital Skills as in the digital

skills framework of the country (to be dealt with in strategy 1 of this document), and

c) Design the content, the methods of delivery and assessment.

c. Reform of highly specialized DS Programs in IT Related fields, (graduate level programs).

a) Review existing graduate level IT related programs (MSc and PhD),

b) Revise the curriculums to the state-of-the-art level of highly specialized digital Skills,

considering the digital skills framework.

c) Design the content, the methods of delivery and assessment,

d) Assess staff requirement and recruit staff at the required level.

d. Reform / Integrate key Digital Skills Courses in TVET Institution

a) Assess the status of digital skills trainings in TVET institutions,

b) Review the ICT programs in TVET Institutions,

c) Identify Industry requirement on TVET level ICT Job demand

d) Integrate the training of Intermediate level digital skills to all TVET students,

e) Reform the ICT programs based on job market requirement

e. Implement online Training and Rapid Skill Programs for Digital Skills.

a) Identify digital skill gaps that can be filled by rapid skilling and online trainings in all

the level programs

b) Design courses for rapid skilling and online trainings

c) Design content and method of delivery and assessment

d) Identify partner organization for the delivery (local or international)


In order to achieve the goals of the strategy, the aforementioned key activities have to be done

within the implementation timeline during the early preparatory year to launch the first five-year

plan. The table below presents the list of activities that has to be conducted to launch the reform

and realize the action plan for all level DS in all HEIs and TVETs.

Table 17: Timeline for the reform of all level DS in all HEIs and TVETs

Sub-

Strategy

Activity Timeline Responsible Body

3. Design the content of the Intermediate Level Digital Skills to be offered as

common to all students in HE and TVET institutions and identify the commonly

practiced digital systems or tools in each specific field of study.

July 2021 MoSHE; Heads of

programs in HEIs

d) Considering the existing fundamental course(s) design or reform

the curriculum to the level required and select pertinent tools for

each specific program,

e) Prepare/ select content and method of delivery and assessment,

and

f) Implement the training program to all students.


23

Sub-

Strategy

Activity Timeline Responsible Body

4. Reform of the undergraduate programs in IT Related fields (Advanced Level

Digital Skills). July 2021

MoSHE; Heads of

programs in HEIs and

TVETs

d) Review existing undergraduate level IT related programs in all

HEIs,

e) Reform the curriculum to the level of Advanced Level Digital

Skills as in the digital skills framework of the country (to be dealt

with in strategy 1 of this document), and

f) Design the content, the methods of delivery and assessment.

5. Reform of highly specialized DS Programs in IT Related fields, (graduate level

programs). July 2021

MoSHE; Heads of

programs in HEIs

e) Review existing graduate level IT related programs (MSc and

PhD),

f) Revise the curriculums to the state-of-the-art level of highly

specialized digital Skills, considering the digital skills

framework.

g) Design the content, the methods of delivery and assessment,

h) Assess staff requirement and recruit staff at the required level.

6. Reform / Integrate key Digital Skills Courses in TVET Institution July 2021 MoSHE; Heads of TVET

programs.

f) Assess the status of digital skills trainings in TVET institutions,

g) Review the ICT programs in TVET Institutions,

h) Identify Industry requirement on TVET level ICT Job demand

i) Integrate the training of Intermediate level digital skills to all

TVET students,

j) Reform the ICT programs based on job market requirement

7. Implement online Training and Rapid Skill Programs for Digital Skills.

February

2022

MoSHE; Heads of

programs in HEIs and

TVETs

e) Identify digital skill gaps that can be filled by rapid skilling and

online trainings in all the level programs

f) Design courses for rapid skilling and online trainings

g) Design content and method of delivery and assessment

h) Identify partner organization for the delivery (local or

international)

8. Avail the necessary number and level of qualification of academic staff, devices,

and infrastructures to launch the DSCAP,

September

2021

MoSHE; Heads of

programs in HEIs

9. Launch the implementation of the DSCAP October

2021

MoSHE; Heads of

programs in HEIs

4.2.5. Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are necessary to measure the progress of the goals set in the

implementation of the DSCAP strategy. The table below presents the major KPIs and the timeline

for their accomplishment.

Table 18: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Sub-

Strategy Indicator Baseline

Timeline

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2030

2.1. Reform and implement

Intermediate Level Digital Skills

(ILDS) for all Students in HE and

TVET institutions


24

Sub-


Timeline

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2030

a) ILDS curriculum Design

and pertinent content

and tools selected in

each program

ILDS not

delivered to all

students

(except to

those in IT

related fields)

100%

b) % of students trained in

ILDS in HEIs NA 15% 25% 40% 50% 100%

c) % of students trained in

ILDS in TVETs NA 5% 15% 25% 35% 100%

d) % of students trained in

ILDS in CTEs NA 5% 15% 25% 30% 100%

e) Number of students

trained in Intermediate

level DS

NA 200,000 500,000 750,000 1,013,462 3,710,323

2.2. Reform of the Undergraduate

Programs in IT Related fields

(Advanced Level Digital Skills)

a) Existing undergraduate

level IT related

programs in all HEIs

reviewed and reformed.

Current IT

related BSc

programs are

not set to the

level of the

state-of-the-art

advanced level

100%

b) % of students trained in

advanced level DS in

HEIs

NA 15% 25% 40% 50% 100%

c) Number of students

trained in advanced

level DS

NA 45,470 55,000 65,000 82,349 134,157

2.3. Reform of Highly Specialized DS

Programs in IT Related fields,

(graduate level programs)

a) Existing MSc level

programs in IT related

programs reviewed and

reformed.

IT related MSc

programs not

in the state-of-

the-art highly

specialized

level

70% 100%

b) Existing PhD level

programs in IT related

programs reviewed and

reformed.

IT related PhD

programs not

in the state of

the art highly

specialized

level

70% 100%

c) % of students trained

in highly specialized

level DS in IT related

fields in HEIs (MSc

programs)

NA 10% 25% 35% 50% 100%

d) Number of students

trained in highly

specialized level DS in

IT related fields in HEIs

(MSc Programs)

1,400 NA 1,600 1,800 2,000 2,255 3,631


25

Sub-


Timeline

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2030

e) % of students trained

in highly specialized

level DS in IT related

fields in HEIs (PhD

programs)

NA 20% 30% 40% 50% 100%

f) Number of students

trained in highly

specialized level DS in

IT related fields in HEIs

(PhD Programs)

100 NA 120 150 180 200 300

2.4. Reform of Key TVET Courses

a) Identify Industry

requirement on TVET

level ICT Job demand

50% 100%

b) Digital Skill training in

TVET Institutions

assessed and reviewed

30% 100%

c) % of students trained

in ILDS in TVETs 30% 100%

d) Number of students

trained in Intermediate

level digital skill

593,007 177,902 1,057,934

e) Number of students in

ICT programs in TVET NA 5,000 10,000 20,000 30,000 100,000

2.5. Implement online Training and

Rapid Skill Programs for Digital

Skills

a) % of digital skill gaps

that can be filled by

rapid skilling and online

trainings in all the level

programs identified.

30% 100%

b) % of delivery of rapid

skilling and online

training established

locally or in partnership

with stakeholders.

30% 100%

c) % of delivery of rapid

skilling and online

training in different

programs.

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 100%


The activities presented in the previous section require capital and recurrent budget. The high-

level expected capital and recurrent costs for the reform of the digital skills programs in HE and

TVET institutions and the budget required for the major activities of the implementation of the

reform is presented in this section. The cost planning is prepared with the GESCI Total Cost

Ownership (TCO) tool by UN ICT Task force16. The cost planning considers key facts and

16 http://tco.gesci.org/


26

conditions such as the number of HE and TVET institutions, the number of students in these

institutions, the current critical requirements in the context of the country and the institutions, etc.

The following tables present the planned capital and recurrent costs for the implementation of

the reform of DSCAP programs. The cost planning is organized by the sub-strategies and

considers Capital and Operational Expenditures under the cost headings of ICT Infrastructure;

Learning platforms and DLR; Professional Development; Monitoring, Evaluation and

Learning; and Program Management. At the end of the section, the total budget summary for

Strategy 2 is given.


27

Capital Cost for Sub strategy 2.1 Intermediate Level Digital Skills Development at HE Institutions (All professions)

Capital Expenditure (in thousands of Birr)

Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023

-

Year

3

2024

-

Year

4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year

10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 2,183,000 1,106,60

0

3,289,600

Professional Development 36,720 30,000 30,000 96,720

Monitoring, Evaluation and

Learning 38,400 38,400 38,400

115,200

Programme Management 3,920 3,920

7,840

Total Cost

79,040

2,213,000

-

-

38,400

1,140,52

0

-

38,400

-

- 3,509,360

Operational cost for Sub strategy 2.1 Intermediate Level Digital Skills Development at HE Institutions (All professions)

Operational Expenditure (in thousands of Birr)

Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year

5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028

-

Year

8

2029

-

Year

9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 108,000 54,000 162,000

Professional Development 15,200 16,000 16,000 16,000 16,000 79,200

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning 800 800 800 4,000 800 800 2,400 800 4,000 15,200

Programme Management 5,800 4,120 5,360 4,120 5,400 4,320 5,560 4,360 5,560 5,120 49,720

Total Cost 21,000 128,920 6,160 20,920 25,400 59,120 22,360 6,760 6,360 9,120 306,120


28

Total cost for Sub strategy 2.1 Intermediate level skills Development at HEI and TVET level (All professions)

Total Budget for Sub-Strategy 2.1 (in thousands of Birr)

Description

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

Total budget 100,040 2,341,920 6,160 20,920 63,800 1,199,640 22,360 45,160 6,360 9,120 3,815,480

Capital Cost for Sub strategy 2.2 Advanced Digital Skills (University Level)


Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year

10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 336,000 336,000

Learning platforms and DLR 1,700,000 1,700,000

Total Cost 1,700,000 336,000 - - - - - - - - 2,036,000

Operational cost for Sub strategy 2.2 Advanced Digital Skills (University Level)


Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total -

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 28,640 19,256 19,256 19,256 30,296 67,256 19,256 19,256 19,256 241,728

Learning platforms and DLR 612,000 3,600 3,600 3,600 3,600 610,800 3,600 3,600 3,600 3,600 1,251,600

Total Cost 612,000 32,240 22,856 22,856 22,856 641,096 70,856 22,856 22,856 22,856 1,493,328

Total cost for Sub strategy 2.2 Advanced Digital Skills (University Level)


Description

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

Total budget 2,312,000 368,240 22,856 22,856 22,856 641,096 70,856 22,856 22,856 22,856 3,529,328


29

Capital Cost for Sub strategy 2.3 Highly Specialized Digital Skills (University Level)


Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year

10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 0 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 146,000

Professional Development 12,600 93,600 0 0 0 16,000 0 0 0 0 122,200

Total Cost 12,600 107,600 14,000 14,000 14,000 34,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 268,200

Operational cost for Sub strategy 2.3 Highly Specialized Digital Skills (University Level)


Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year

10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure - 32,000 32,000 32,000 32,000 48,000 48,000 48,000 48,000 48,000 368,000

Professional Development - 3,600 3,600 3,600 3,600 3,600 3,600 3,600 3,600 3,600 32,400

Total Cost - 35,600 35,600 35,600 35,600 51,600 51,600 51,600 51,600 51,600 400,400

Total cost for Sub strategy 2.3 Highly Specialized Digital Skills (University Level)


Description

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

Total budget 12,600 143,200 49,600 49,600 49,600 85,600 69,600 69,600 69,600 69,600 668,600


30

Capital Cost for Sub strategy 2.4 Intermediate level Digital Skills programs at TVET level


Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 1,100,000 580,000 1,680,000

Professional Development 8,000 6,000 14,000

Physical Infrastructure 943,600 636,480 1,580,080

Total Cost 8,000 2,043,600 1,222,480 3,274,080

Operational cost for Sub strategy 2.4 Intermediate level Digital Skills programs at TVET level (ICT professions)


Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 0 0 60,000 60,000 60,000 60,000 90,000 105,000 105,000 105,000 645,000

Professional Development 0 269,600 0 0 0 195,840 0 0 0 0 465,440

Total Cost - 269,600 60,000 60,000 60,000 255,840 90,000 105,000 105,000 105,000 1,110,440

Total cost for Sub strategy 2.4 Intermediate level Digital Skills programs at TVET level (ICT professions)


Description

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

Total budget 8,000

2,313,200 60,000 60,000 60,000 1,478,320 90,000 105,000 105,000

105,000 4,384,520


31

Capital Cost for Sub strategy 2.5: Rapid Skilling Programs


Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 12,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12,000

Total Cost 12,000 - - - - - - - - - 12,000

Operational cost for Sub strategy 2.5: Rapid Skilling Programs


Cost Headings

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

Professional Development - 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 5,600 5,600 5,600 5,600 5,600 44,000

Total Cost - 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 5,600 5,600 5,600 5,600 5,600 44,000

Total cost for Sub strategy 2.5: Rapid Skilling Programs


Description

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

Total Budget

12,000

4,000 4,000

4,000 4,000 5,600

5,600

5,600

5,600

5,600

56,000


32

Total Budget (Capital and Operational) for Strategy 2 – Digital Skills Country Action Plan of Ethiopia

Strategy 2 – Reform of

Digital Skills programs Total Capital and Operational Cost (in thousands of Birr)

Strategies / Sub-strategies - DSCAP 2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

2.1 Intermediate level skills

Development at HE and

TVET level (All professions)

100,040

2,341,920

6,160

20,920

63,800

1,199,640

22,360

45,160

6,360

9,120

3,815,480

2.2 Advanced Digital Skills

(University Level)

2,312,000

368,240

22,856

22,856

22,856

641,096

70,856

22,856

22,856

22,856

3,529,328

2.3. Highly Specialized Digital

Skills (University Level)

12,600

143,200

49,600

49,600

49,600

85,600

69,600

69,600

69,600

69,600

668,600

2.4 Intermediate level Digital

Skills programs at TVET

level (ICT professions)

8,000

2,313,200

60,000

60,000

60,000

1,478,320

90,000

105,000

105,000

105,000

4,384,520

2.5 Rapid Skilling Programs

12,000

4,000

4,000

4,000

4,000

5,600

5,600

5,600

5,600

5,600

56,000

Total for Strategy 2

2,444,640

5,170,560

142,616

157,376

200,256

3,410,256

258,416

248,216

209,416

212,176

12,453,928


33

4.3. Section-III: Strategy 3 - Enhance Use of Technology in Teaching

Learning, Research, and Administration

The digital skills country action plan helps Ethiopia to create a digitally skilled workforce from all

academic fields of HEIs and TVETs. The overall digital skills country action plan is divided into

5 interlinked strategies and Enhance Use of Technology in Teaching Learning, Research, and

Administration is one of them. This strategy intends to make use of technology such as LMS and

connectivity infrastructure, outlined in Strategy 4, to develop the capacity of students, instructors,

and academic and administrative staffs in HEIs as well as TVETs in the use technology to improve

their day-to-day academic activities, such as teaching and learning, research, administration, and

community service.

This strategy makes use of the digital skills courses designed in Strategy 2 to be delivered using

technology to pupil in HEIs and TVETs. The implementation of the delivery shall be supported by

policies identified in strategy 1.

All students graduating from these HEIs and TVETs shall have intermediate digital skills

knowledge to handle tasks in their field of study using digital skills. The capacity of the faculty to

use digital skills tools in blended teaching shall be developed through similar intermediate level

digital skills courses. Moreover, the digital leadership of MoSHE, HEIs, and TVET management

and staff to implement the digital skills action plan shall be developed with capacity building

programs as stipulated in strategy 5. In time, all instructors in HEIs and TVETs need to have

intermediate level digital skills so that they can blend digital tools in all their teaching learning.

Furthermore, the administrative systems in HE and TVET Institutions provide functions such as

human resources management, payroll, finance, inventory, and procurement. Additionally,

universities need student information systems that provide student management functionality from

admission to graduation, financial aid (cost-sharing), and advising. In addition, implementing

standardized and shared student management system, faculty management systems and human

resources management systems that take advantage of the flexibility of emerging web-based

service architectures should be developed and made available to all HEIs and TVETs to ensure

better management and enable data sharing across the institutions.

Sub-Strategies of Strategy 3

There are seven sub-strategies in Strategy 3 of the digital skills country action plan. These are:

Sub-Strategy 3.1: Expanding and Improving Online Course Work (Distance

Learning and Brick and Mortar Settings)

This sub-strategy aims to meet the growing demands for HE and TVET to improve access to online

courses. The access will increase not only within campus but outside campus as well. The digital

skills courses defined by level and profession in strategy 2 shall be provided face to face and online

supported by policy for their implementation.


34

The face-to-face harmonized Fundamentals of ICT course will give students the chance to learn

about computers, online technology, the internet, LMS etc. so that the intermediate level digital

skills courses can be provided online via LMS to students. These digital skills courses shall be

delivered to massive number of students via technology. The online technology will also be used

for delivering rapid skilling programs in any or all of the HEIs, TVETs, as well as other leadership

trainings mentioned in Strategy 5.

Sub-Strategy 3.2: Expanding and Improving the Use of Technology for Teaching

and Learning in Classrooms

This sub strategy intends to improve and expand students’ use of technology in attending their

courses. Regular courses will be delivered face to face in classrooms as usual and the digital skills

tools necessary to better understand and deliver the course will be offered online via LMS.

Academic program units in all HEIs and TVETs shall define the types of digital skills tools that

are required by their courses. The most common cross departmental tools such as: Office

Applications, Basic English Skills, Report Writing and Communication Skills, and Citation and

Referencing Skills can be offered initially in blended form with the corresponding courses using

LMS. Experiences from these courses will help to further add additional digital skills tools to be

purchased and learned by the relevant students in blended form.

Instructors/faculty who do not have the beginner level digital skills knowledge must also register

and take the face-to-face Fundamentals of ICT course so that they can take intermediate level

digital skills courses related to the courses they teach via LMS. This allows students and faculty

to take the suggested coursework and apply digital skills and competencies such as

communication, collaboration, research writing and problem solving in their teaching learning. It

also offers students strategic and purposeful opportunities to acquire practice and reinforce digital

skill competencies for full mastery. By improving the use of communication, collaboration, and

research tools, students, and faculty in HEIs and TVETs can increase the quality of teaching

learning as well as research conducted and published.

Sub-Strategy 3.3: Implement a Unified Automated Management Information

System for HEIs and TVETs

This sub strategy aims to create ways in which MoSHE can continue to provide an integrated

computerized campus management system for HE and TVET institutions’ functions which covers

the entire life cycle of students from admissions to graduation/alumni. A student’s enrolment,

teacher management, tests, assignments, library, dormitory, eligibility, results, marksheets and

degree certificates shall be available on a single platform. In addition, centralized ERP systems

will be developed/purchased to support HE and TVET institutions to better handle their day to day

financial, human resource, procurement, and other services using digital tools. The developed

system should be

• Flexible enough to support education systems across the board including a blended form

of learning,


35

• Integrate mobile and social-enhanced solutions for students, faculty, and administrators,

• Support for real-time analysis of data to enable more efficient operations and to

strategically support the transformation of the institution through the use of advanced

analytics,

• Less disruptive during the implementation processes, especially during the transition from

legacy systems to newer systems, and

• Modular with the ability to integrate emerging technologies and standards.

Sub-Strategy 3.4: Developing ICT Supported Teaching-Learning Space

This sub strategy aims to develop and maintain ICT supported teaching-learning space that can

help students and teachers to implement technology-based learning as well as support special needs

curriculum. While the growth in HE and TVET has been phenomenal in Ethiopia in recent years,

through the establishment of new universities and TVETs, the design of the new buildings and

space did not take the future of flexible and online learning into consideration.

Sub-Strategy 3.5: Implement Assistive Technologies to Meet the Needs of the

People with Speech, Dexterity, Vision, Hearing and Cognitive

Difficulties

This sub strategy aims to implement assistive technologies to support special needs students and

faculty in their teaching learning and research activities. The obligation of HE and TVET

institutions to ensure equity of access for physically challenged students, faculty and staff implies

that support to people with speech, dexterity, vision, hearing and cognitive difficulties through

assistive software and hardware across the HE and TVET institutions is critical.

Sub-Strategy 3.6: Support Research and Innovation Using Digital Technologies

Today, ICTs serve as a core research infrastructure because access to international labs, research

data, and other resources can be facilitated through it. All research activities are becoming

increasingly dependent on ICT and data to be manipulated by computers. A national e-research

infrastructure is a cross-cutting capability that serves research collaboration, modelling, data, and

data analysis needs and supports all other research infrastructure. It comprises advanced networks,

identity management systems, high performance and cloud computing resources, infrastructure for

management and access to research data and the integration of all those elements to create digital

environments that the researchers use on a day-to-day basis.

Sub-Strategy 3.7: Implement Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Open Educational

Resources (OER)

This sub-strategy aims to implement AI and adopt and implement OER in HE and TVET

institutions, as necessary.


36

The opportunities and challenges that AI could bring to HE and TVET institutions is significant.

For example, chatbots can provide personalized help and guidance to answer questions for students

in the area of student academic issues, university regulations, course management, reference

material etc. just as academic advisor but available 24/7. Moreover, AI labs can help students and

faculty to conduct specialized research in the area of Artificial Intelligence and its subfields.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are free and openly licensed educational materials that can be

used for teaching learning, research, community service, and other purposes. Teaching learning

and research materials in any medium, digital, or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or

have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and

redistribution by other with no or limited restrictions. This strategy aims to adopt and strengthen

OER in HE and TVET institutions.


The current status of HE and TVET institutions in regard to digital skills courses and offering them

via technology is next to nil. The implementation of digital tools to support the day to day

administrative, student management, and research related activities is individualized, and

institution based. Moreover, these digital tools exist mainly in universities and not in CTEs and

TVET institutions.

High school students from Grade 9-12 are required to take Introduction to ICT course. The content

of the textbook covers basic content in ICT. However, most public schools especially those outside

of Addis Ababa do not have facilities such as: computer labs and the teachers to cover the contents.

Some private schools in the capital city may provide the full content, but they account for less than

5% of the total high school enrollment.

Universities, public and private, include Introductory ICT course in their curriculum and provide

it to all their students. This course delivered in one semester (16 weeks) normally includes

laboratory exercises which requires computer labs equipped with computers connected to the

internet. However, this course is not based on any standard. It is designed by the HEIs themselves

and may not have the same content in all universities. This Introductory ICT course have been

around for many years and are updated but not against any technology standard.

In addition to the basics, recently (as of the current 2019/20 academic year), a new course

Introduction to Emerging Technologies is included to be taken by all undergraduate students in

HEIs. The content of this course include introduction to IoT, data science, AI, machine learning

etc. all packed in one.

TVET institutions on the other hand do not offer Introductory ICT course to their students unless

they are enrolled in the ICT related departments. This course is delivered face to face.

Therefore, the digital skills content for all the literacy levels (fundamental, intermediate, advanced,

and specialized) have to be created from scratch and a mechanism for delivering them shall be


37

designed. Currently, Ethiopian HE and TVET institutions do not offer online courses and do not

use standard LMS except for some departments that use Moodle or other tools for file sharing.

When it comes to implementation of integrated systems for administration, student management

and research, HEIs especially universities use their own independently purchased student

management systems whereas financial management is mostly handled by a system which is

integrated with the Ministry of Finance. Moreover, digital library and other support systems are

implemented in only a few universities on individual basis.

Table 19: Baseline Data for Distance learning

Baseline for online course

work in both distance

learning and brick and

mortar settings.

Distance learning takes place in some private HEIs. However, public HEIs and

TVETs do not offer online courses. Recently though several universities are

delivering courses online at least to their graduate students because of COVID 19

shutdowns.

Some of the universities are providing open book exams and home take

assignments for course assessment. However, no standard exists on what shall be

fulfilled for online learning to be considered successful. In addition, universities

have also conducted face to face as well as virtual thesis defense programs for

their graduate students

Baseline data on the

current use of online

coursework to teach

intermediate level digital

skills in both distance


mortar settings.

Intermediate level digital skills courses are not given to faculty or to students in

all HE and TVET institutions.

Baseline data on current

use of technology for

administrative, research,

and student management

tasks

HEIs especially universities are using their own independently developed or

purchased student management systems. Financial management is mostly

supported by a system which is integrated with the Ministry of Finance.

Moreover, digital library and other support systems are implemented in only a few

universities

Baseline on the use of

assistive technologies for

disabilities

Some HEIs (not TVETs and CTEs) have basic assistive technology to a certain

extent.

Baseline on existence of

ICT Supported Teaching-

Learning Space

Some HEIs (not TVETs and CTEs) have limited number of smart classrooms

within their campuses. However, the use of these smart classes for the intended

purpose is limited.

Baseline on the status of AI

and OER

AI and OER are not currently implemented in any of the HEIs and TVETS.

Although there is some preliminary research being conducted in some of the

research universities


38

Table 20: Desired state of this strategy by 2025 and 2030 for digital skills

Year Goal

Desired state by

2025, and 2030

The desired goal is to have all students in public HE and TVET institutions to be trained in

intermediate level digital skill courses. This can be achieved in 2025 by putting in place a

policy to enforce all students entering HE and TVET institutions to take the fundamental

digital skill course face to face by updating the content of Introduction to ICT course, which

is already offered in most curriculums in HEIs.

This will give HE and TVET institutions as well as MoSHE a year to prepare for the online

delivery of the intermediate level digital skills courses identified by the program units via

LMS. In the meantime, MoSHE can select and build the capacity of local HE and TVET

institutions to support the delivery of digital skills in blended form along with the regular

classes.

Moreover, the LMS should allow organizations who are interested to take the digital skills

online courses in a rapid skilling scheme to be given the opportunity and get certified. That

is, the digital skills courses should serve not only HE and TVET institutions faculty and

students, but also anyone who is interested to develop their digital skills.

Existing initiatives

in support of

expanding and

improving online

course work

(distance learning

and brick and

mortar settings)

There are some initiatives on the side of the Ethiopian government to scale up the digital

skills literacy level of its citizens. In this regard, the following can be mentioned

1. The National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Policy and

Strategy. Some of the desired outcomes of this policy include

• Produce a knowledgeable and highly skilled ICT labor force for enabling the

country to develop and use ICT more effectively, and

• Create a digitally literate population capable of using ICT to transform their

standards of living and who can not only consume but also produce digital

content.

2. Digital Ethiopia 2025. Some of the initiatives include:

• Create an enabling legal and system framework for E-Services,

• Design electronic portals and piloting enablers such as E-Payment, E-Signature,

and E-Receipts, and

• Fully integrate E-Services with end-to-end transactions.

3. Ethiopian e-Government Strategic Implementation Plan 2020. This plan has

initiatives that help the DSCAP strategy stating:

• A holistic training program should be established, and

• The development of relevant e-Gov policies and standards to guide the behavior

of Government staff in relevant domains.

Hence, students graduating from HE and TVET institutions to join the public or the

private sector need to be digitally skilled.

Expected

difference/progress

that will be made

with the plan

Provision of digital skill courses in HE and TVET institutions in all academic programs at

least in intermediate level to all students and faculty will provide nationwide digital skills

literacy in Ethiopia.

By 2025, students graduating from HE and TVET institutions will have intermediate level

digital skills to make use of technology in their jobs as well as their daily life.

To this end, all public HE and TVET faculty shall be trained in intermediate level digital

skills by 2025/26 Academic year.


39

Year Goal

This implies that at least 20% of faculty in every institution shall be trained in Intermediate

Digital Skills each year. This enables them to use digital skills in their courses to make sure

that their students shall have intermediate level digital skill when they graduate.


The following table shows the goals/objectives of the sub-strategies defined for Strategy 3.

Table 21: Goals of the sub-strategies for strategy 3

Goals Measurable goal Indicators

Sub-strategy 3.1:

Expanding and

Improving Online

Coursework

(Distance Learning

and Brick and

Mortar Settings)

High-level goal: 3.1

a) To offer one course (Fundamentals of ICT: by

updating content of the existing course) to all new

entry students in HE and TVET institutions face

to face.

b) To offer the Fundamentals of ICT course to

faculty of HE and TVET institutions based on

need. c) To Revise Emerging Technologies course to be

more focused on providing Digital Skills, and

offer it online to all students and faculty

1. % of academic staffs in public HE

and TVET trained with

intermediate level digital skills

2. % of faculty taking the

Fundamentals of ICT courses

3. % of faculty and students with

know how to take a course via

LMS and will utilize the LMS to

post and access assignments.

Sub-strategy 3.2:

Expanding and

Improving the Use of

Technology for

Teaching and

Learning in

Classrooms

High-level goal: 3.2

a) To offer the most common intermediate

digital skills courses online.

b) To train faculty in all HE and TVET institutions

to embed/use technology in teaching as well as

research by 2025.

1. % of program units in HE and

TVET institutions who select the

digital skill tools for their courses

2. % of faculties in HE and TVET institutions who offer their

courses in blended form.

3. % of digitally skilled students who

graduate from public HE and

TVET institutions

Sub-strategy 3.3:

Implement a Unified

Automated

Management

Information System

for HE and TVET

Institutions

High-level goal: 3.3.

a) To establish standardized core enterprise

systems.

b) To establish a platform for sharing enterprise

applications, policies, methodologies tools, and

resources,

c) To adopt an Enterprise Architecture approach

for developing integrated enterprise solutions

for the institutions,

d) To implement integrated single windows

solutions based on Enterprise Architecture.

1. Developed enterprise architecture

2. Unified Automated Management

Information System Implemented

(No. of modules implemented)

3. % of HE and TVET institutions

getting the services

4. % of HE and TVET students

benefiting from Biometric ID

5. SLA and Issue Tracking developed

6. DW and BI Solution developed

7. % of functional units getting the

SLA, DW and BI


40


e) To use a standardized and shared Campus

Management Systems in all HE and TVET

institutions

Sub-strategy 3.4:

Developing ICT

Supported Teaching-

Learning Space


a) To establish a Centre for Technology Enhanced

Learning (CTEL) in all HE and TVET

institutions

b) To review the requirements for teaching and

learning spaces, computer laboratories and

associated infrastructure in all HE and TVET

institutions

c) To establish a plan for the upgrade of the

technological functionality of existing facilities

d) To ensure that new expansion plan in all HE and

TVET institutions accommodate for an online

and ICT enabled classrooms.

1. No of CTELs established

2. ToR for Tech supported classes

prepared

3. No of HE and TVET with Tech

supported teaching learning

space

4. No of classrooms with Tech

support

5. Cloud based LMS implemented

Sub-strategy 3.5:

Implement Assistive

Technologies to Meet

the Needs of People

with Speech,

Dexterity, Vision,

Hearing and

Cognitive Difficulties


a) To conduct assistive technologies research.

b) To set up assistive technology labs with state-of-

the-art equipment to help students and faculty as

desired.

c) To provide support with a range of available

technologies based on plan and needs

1. No of HEIs conducting Assistive

Technology research

2. No of Assistive tech labs

established

3. No of software/tools purchased

4. No of I-Pads with the necessary

tools distributed to assist the

disabled

Sub-strategy 3.6:

Support Research

and Innovation Using

Digital Technologies


a) To strengthen EthERNet to become a key player

in supporting national research and education

activities.

b) To establish a capability at all HE institutions to

support research workflow and researchers.

c) To develop capacity for research data

management, sharing and archiving of research

results, setting benchmark data of local and

international standard research.

d) To develop a nation-wide plan for sharing

scarce HPC resources; and

e) To promote the open data and open science

initiatives.

1 Anti-plagiarism software

implemented

2 No of labs established

3 No of software/tools purchased

4 National research data service

available at EthERNet

5 Coordinated utilization of HPC

6 Standardized unified management

information system implemented

7 Established unified digital library


41


Sub-strategy 3.7:

Implement Artificial

Intelligence (AI) and

Open Educational

Resources (OER)


a) To improve teaching learning in higher

education through the use of smarter and

intelligent technologies.

b) To improve assessment and evaluation of

research using intelligent systems such as anti-

plagiarism checking systems.

c) To predict student and staff performances and

provide support to improve the same.

d) To improve HE and TVET institutions day to day

administrative activities.

e) To support the development of teaching learning

technologies such as LMS, digital information

management, resource allocation and

management.

f) To support the development and creation of

green environment such as Data Center

Optimization, water/waste grid management.

g) To improve the safety and security of students

and faculty within HE and TVET institutions

through the use of AI

1 No of Established AI offices

2 No of AI Labs established in HEIs

3 No of Collaborating HEIs and

TVETs in sharing resources

4 No of Established OER offices

5 No of OER collaborations

established

6 No of MOOC developed

7 Augmented and Virtual Reality

implemented

4.3.3. Activities

Several activities are defined to achieve the goals of each of the sub-strategies.

Sub-Strategy 3.1 – Activities to Expand and Improve Online Coursework

The following are the key activities used to reach the sub-strategic goal of expanding and

improving online course work.

• Identify team to revise courses: ensure expertise in course design, pedagogy, digital

technologies, online learning, digital tool selection,

• Adopt digital skills quality standards: this needs to happen at the Ministry level, and

will need to happen by mid of 2021 so that revised courses are built with these

standards in mind

• Research best practices in digital skills courses,

• Revise basic introductory skills (i.e., the already existing Introductory ICT) course,

• Revise Emerging Technologies course to include hands-on instruction in intermediate

digital skills and for online delivery,


42

• Select LMS and other digital tools necessary for Intermediate Digital Skills, and

• Post revised courses on LMS for online and/or blended delivery.

Sub-Strategy 3.2 – Activities to Expand and Improve the Use of Technology for

Teaching and Learning in Classrooms

The following are the key activities used to reach the strategic goal of expanding and improving

the use of technology for teaching and learning in classrooms.

• Academic program units select the digital software/tools required to support the

courses,

• HE and TVET institutions acquire the selected tools,

• Select trainers to be trained on the selected tools,

• Train the selected trainers in Fundamentals of ICT course,

• The trained faculty in turn train their colleagues on the digital tools,

• Courses in the academic units will be offered in blended form with the digital skills

software/tools, and

• Revise the academic staff evaluation forms to include use of technology in teaching

learning.

Sub-Strategy 3.3 – Activities to Implement a Unified Automated Management

Information System

The following are the key activities used to reach the strategic goal of implementing a unified

automated management information system for HE and TVET institutions.

• Assemble ERP project team.

• Create ERP implementation plan.

• Carry out a comprehensive assessment of the current business processes and

requirements in HE and TVET institutions,

• Prepare the infrastructure/hardware for deployment,

• Implement Enterprise Architecture Project,

• Knowledge Transfer and Technology Ownership included as part of the project,

• Implement student identification - Biometric registration of students in HE and TVET

Sub-Strategy 3.4 – Activities to Develop ICT Supported Teaching-Learning Space


43

The following are the key activities used to reach the strategic goal of developing technology

supported teaching learning space.

• Establish a Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning (CTEL) in all HE and TVET

Institutes,

• Populate the center with qualified personnel,

• Create Technology Enhanced Active Learning environments and instructional spaces,

• Review curriculums to create flexible and technology-enhanced pedagogy,

• Support and advise educational technology projects and engage with faculty and

students on issues and advances on technology-based education,

• Review the requirements for classrooms, computer laboratories and associated

infrastructure in HE and TVET institutions,

• Re-design existing space to create more flexibility for teaching learning,

• Upgrade the technological functionality of existing facilities (i.e. furniture,

multimedia rooms)

• Perform maintenance of all teaching-learning facilities regularly,

• Develop new building codes that support technology enhanced learning making

blended learning (face-to-face and online) a reality, and

• Make sure all new buildings have Internet and wireless networks, electric and fiber

optics outlets, and learning furniture and technologies integrated into their designs.

Sub-Strategy 3.5 – Activities to Implement Assistive Technologies for Special

Needs Students and Faculty

The following are the key activities used to reach the strategic goal of implementing assistive

technologies for special needs students and faculty.

• Establish a dedicated team on assistive technologies in all ICT Services Departments

of HE and TVET institutes,

• Establish assistive technologies lab with state-of-the-art equipment for special needs

students and faculty,

• Provide support with technology based on plan and needs - such as text-to-speech and

speech-to-text software, a screen reader, note-taking solutions, magnification


44

products, and iPads equipped with educational apps to help students, faculty, and staff

with speech, dexterity, vision, hearing, and cognitive difficulties, and

• Research new ideas on assistive technologies resources from advanced countries in

order to learn about new developments in the area and ensure students, faculty and

staff are aware of and get access to the latest tools.

Sub-Strategy 3.6 – Activities to Support Research and Innovation Using Digital

Technologies

The following are the key activities used to reach the strategic goal of supporting research and

innovation using digital technologies.

• Establish an academic cloud that allows the research community in Ethiopia to share

computational models, software tools and data,

• Establish a national research data service at EthERNet with the aim of improving

research collaboration nationally and internationally,

• Establish HPC lab at EthERNet,

• Strengthen digital libraries and access to digital collections,

• Develop library space as platform for learning and collaboration,

• Promote information literacy, and

• Prepare librarians to deliver digital-enabled services.

Sub-Strategy 3.7 – Activities to Implement Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Open

Educational Resources (OER)

The following are the key activities used to reach the strategic goal of implement Artificial

Intelligence (AI) and Open Educational Resources (OER).

• Establish an AI office in each campus or college/institute depending on feasibility and

structure of the HEI with access to AI laboratories within or outside the country,

• Populate the AI offices with the necessary manpower from the relevant departments

within the university and from the industry,

• Set up AI laboratory with the ability for high performance computing, access to large

amount of data (example different types of corpus),


45

• Collaborate with other HE and TVET institutions within the country to learn from

one another and support each other in terms of data availability, staff/expert

exchange, product sharing etc.

• Collaborate with international organizations working on AI to learn from one another

and improve the activities of the HE and TVET institutions,

• Ensure that HE and TVET institutions share their computing resources, inventions,

research outputs, data, etc. with each other,

• Establish a team for adoption and implementation of OER at institutional level,

• Prepare plan for acquisition of OER and capacity building,

• Prepare guideline for OER administration,

• Conduct capacity building program, and

• Develop a plan for development of OER and Massive Open Online Courses

(MOOCs).

Quality Standards

The following table shows the quality standards to evaluate the quality of online courses work in

terms of its delivery and evaluation. Development of a quality standard from scratch is

cumbersome and time taking. Therefore, adoption of an already existing quality standard from

tested standards such as the United Nations or European Union is recommended. This quality

standard for Ethiopia shall be developed by 2020/21 academic year.

Table 22: Quality standards for online courses

Quality Standards to

adopt and evaluate

quality of online

coursework

Rationale to support the

adoption of these

standards

Organizations/agencies

to involve in adoption

and the timeline for

approval

Standards

support for

strategy goal(s)

Quality standards will be put

in place to implement:

• optimal ways to deliver

content

• optimal ways to assess

learning

• optimal ways to provide

support services

Higher Education Relevance

and Quality Agency

(HERQA) is responsible for

such activities.

These standards have been

implemented by several

countries and are tested in

real environments for their

success.

Moreover, adopting a tested

standard for quality

assurance is the best option

for Ethiopia rather than

going through all the

HERQA, MoSHE, AAU

being the oldest university

in the country with the

necessary expertise, and

MInT can work together

and adopt a quality

standard.

The overall responsibility

of assembling teams from

each of these stakeholders

will be the responsibility of

MoSHE. The quality and

The adopted

standards will

help in developing

and/or selecting

up to the standard

digital skills

courses that

enable HE and

TVET faculty and

students to

support teaching


46

The Agency can adopt an

international standard from

the United nations or the

European Union to implement

the optimal standard for all

activities.

process of development

from scratch.

standards framework shall

be approved and

implemented by 2020/21

academic year.

learning with

digital skills.

Course Selection, Faculty Development, Minimum Standards.

The courses to be offered need to be selected, prioritized, and properly administered for faculty

and students. The table below presents the course selection and faculty development plan for this

strategy.

Table 23: Course Selection and Faculty Development

Courses to be offered

online to meet the goal

of expanding and

improving online

coursework

Reason for selecting the

courses

Institutions to

offer these

courses

Strategy to

develop faculty

to teach these

courses

Minimum

standards &

guidelines for

faculty

• The first year shall be

reserved for face to

face by updating the

Introductory ICT

course as beginners’

digital skills course for

every student and

faculty in all HE and

TVET institutions.

• The selected digital

skill software/tools by

each academic unit

will be offered in

blended form to all

students. Faculty. Will

take these courses

using rapid skilling

scheme.

• The updated

Fundamentals of ICT

course will enable

students and faculty to

know the basics of

computers and how to

use the internet and

LMS.

• The selected

intermediate level

digital skills courses

will be offered in

blended form along

with the regular

courses to improve

understanding of the

courses better and be

digitally skilled citizen

on graduation

• Digital skills

knowledge helps to

collaborate, write

better reports, and

term papers, as well as

perform better on the

courses.

• All HE and

TVET

institutions

including CTEs

will offer the

digital skills

courses to all

students and

faculty.

• The digital

skills courses

will be offered

online and in

blended form

• The courses

will be hosted

at EthERNet on

the LMS

• Faculty from

all HE and

TVET

institutions

will be

selected as

trainers.

Then, training

of trainer’s

program can

be

administered

• The trained

trainers will

then deliver

the

Fundamentals

of ICT course

to the rest of

their

respective

faculty.

Faculty should

pass both the

Fundamentals

of ICT and the

selected digital

skill courses to

teach blended

courses in

their

department.

Online Course Management

Management of online courses is a critical task for the success of this strategy. Several approaches

exist to handle online course delivery. Online course manager could be hired, capacity of


47

universities can be developed to handle the management, or a special unit with the necessary

manpower could be established for online course management. The table below shows the strategy

to handle online course management.

Table 24: Approach for online course management

Strategy for online

course management

Courses housing

(LMS, current faculty and student usage

by percentage)

Course Management Strategic

investments

HERQA, MoSHE

(through EthERNet)

and Addis Ababa

University computing

departments can

handle the

management of the

digital skills courses

• The LMS and the online courses shall be

hosted at EthERNet (MoSHE)

• EthERNet is equipped with better

connectivity and High-Performance

Computing Data Center to host the online

courses. It also connects most public HEIs

in Ethiopia. CTEs and TVET institutions

are yet to be connected.

• Some HE and TVET institutions use

open-source online course management

Moodle for simple uploading of course

materials such as slides and notes at

department level.

• Open source LMS such as Moodle will

not be appropriate for a nationwide online

course management platform. Hence, a

high quality and well tested professional

LMS system is necessary to embark on a

nationwide delivery of digital skills

program online or in blended form.

• IT related computing

departments within HE

and TVET institutions can be responsible for

the management of the

courses.

• These departments are

currently responsible

for delivering the

Introduction to ICT

and Emerging

Technology courses for

all students in all

departments within

their college.

The Ethiopian

Government has

planned to work and

invest in digital

skills as can be seen

from the recently

approved digital

skills transformation

strategy.


48

3.1.1 Digital Tools to be Used in Service of the New Online Courses

Digital tools such as LMS are necessary for the success of the digital skills country action plan.

The following table shows the tools used and their usage as well as those needed in the future.

Table 25: Digital tools and their usage

Tool Type Tools to be

used in

service of new

online courses

Current

Faculty

Usage of

targeted

tools17

Current

Student

Usage of

targeted

tools

Tool Plans

(New tools

needed to

meet goals

)

Tool Plans

Purpose of these tools?

Learning

Management

System

None None LMS To offer digital skills courses

for students and faculty at

HE and TVET institutions

online and in blended form

Data Analytics

Platforms

SPSS, R,

Smart PLS

MS-Excel etc.

Most

researchers

and

graduate

students

Few Analysis of primary data

collected or secondary data

that already exist

Content Delivery

and Presentation

tools

MS-Power

point

Most

teachers

Some for

presentation

To provide content to

students and faculty for

research, presentation, and

teaching learning

Assessment,

Proctoring and

Quizzing tools

• e-mail,

Telegram,

• LMS

• Google

forms

• Most

• Few

• Few

• Most

• Few

• Few

For students to work on their

assignments and for faculty

to assess them

Content, Coaching

and Aggregator

tools

• None • None To be

decided

(TBD)

Research and

Organization tools

Project

management

tools

• Few Most

researchers

and graduate

students

TBD To write appropriate reports

with proper citation,

referencing and organization

by faculty and students

Communications

tools

• Email,

• social

media,

• portal

All

Most

Few

All

Most

Few

TBD For faculty and students to

communicate with each other

for assessment, reports,

collaboration etc.

Mobile

Applications

• Email,

SMS,

• Google

Meet,

• All

• Few

• All

• Few

TBD To communicate with one

another, to attend online

classes, etc.

17 All (90-100%), Most (75%-89%), Some (40%-60%), Few (10%-39%), None


49

Tool Type Tools to be

used in

service of new

online courses

Current

Faculty

Usage of

targeted

tools17

Current

Student

Usage of

targeted

tools

Tool Plans

(New tools

needed to

meet goals

)

Tool Plans

Purpose of these tools?

Other Digital

Tools

• Digital

Library

• Staff eval

system,

• ISMIS

• Few

• Few

• All

• Few

• Few

• All

• To access published and

unpublished resources

from digital libraries,

• To evaluate performance

of faculty,

• To manage student

enrolment, course

administration and

grading

• No TVET or HEI uses a proper learning management tool except Moodle for some basic

slide and file sharing

Access to Devices and Learning Center Plans

Digital devices are critical for students and faculty to access the digital tools and all the online

courses to be offered via the LMS. Access to digital devices shall be facilitated to students via

cost-sharing schemes for regular undergrad students and long-term loan mechanism for other

graduate and continuing education students as well as faculty. The table below shows the strategy

for access to digital devices.

Table 26: Access to digital devices

Access to

devices on

campus

Access to devices

off campus

Student to

device ratios at

targeted

institutions

Targeted

ratios with

this

strategy

(given the

levels of

ambition

and

enrolment

targets)

Device access plans (on and

off campus, explanation of

how students will access

devices and estimated

numbers of devices to reach

targeted ratios)

All

Public

HEIs

ICT related

departments

have computer

labs.

• 1:10 ratio,

For non-IT

departments,

almost none

• None

• Most for

graduate

students

• Few for

undergrad

students

• 1:10 on

average for

computing

departments

• 1:100 for

non-

computing

departments

20-23% of

regular

(non-

paying)

undergrad

students in

public HEIs

have access

to digital

devices by

2021/22

academic

year

On Campus: Undergraduate

students can be provided

with laptops or tablets.

However, evening/paying

students should use the

comp labs on campus or

bring their own device

Off Campus: Ethio telecom

can get involved in providing

free access to EthERNet

server as it has for the

National digital library

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et


50

Access to

devices on

campus

Access to devices

off campus

Student to

device ratios at

targeted

institutions

Targeted

ratios with

this

strategy

(given the

levels of

ambition

and

enrolment

targets)






targeted ratios)

Continuing

education

(Paying)

students

should

bring their

own

devices to

class

Government can use PPP or

work with regional

education bureaus to build

internet cafes and tutorial

centers for increased student

access

All

Public

TVETs

and

CTEs

ICT departments

have computer

laboratories with

about 20

computers.

• For IT

related

departments

1:50 ratio,

• For non-IT

departments,

almost none

• Few • 1:10 on

average for

IT

department

• None for

non-IT

departments

All regular

(non-

paying)

students in

public

TVETs

have access

to digital

devices

On Campus: TVET and

CTE students can be

provided with laptops or

Tablets. Off Campus: Ethio

telecom can get involved in

providing free access to

EthERNet server as it has

for the National digital

library

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et.

Faculty will also develop

course content for online as

well as offline access when

the LMS is in place so that

students can download the

content on-campus and use

it offline later Government

can use PPP (public private

partnership) or partner with

regional education bureaus

to build internet cafes and

tutorial centers for increased

students’ access

All

private

HEIs,

CTEs

and

TVETs

Students have

access to

computer labs

for those in ICT

related

departments

• Most: Over

75% of

Graduate

students in

Private

institutions

often have

laptops

1:2

1:2

1:100

90%

Because if

most

academic

materials

are

available

online,

private

On-Campus: All private

institutions shall be forced

to have enough connectivity

to access digital content

Off Campus: Ethio telecom

can get involved in

providing free access to

LMS server as it has for the

National digital library


51

Access to

devices on

campus

Access to devices

off campus

Student to

device ratios at

targeted

institutions

Targeted

ratios with

this

strategy

(given the

levels of

ambition

and

enrolment

targets)






targeted ratios)

• For IT

related

departments

1:10 ratio

• For non-IT

departments,

almost none

• Some: over

50% of

undergraduate

students have

access to

laptops.

• Few students

in private

TVETs and

CTEs have

access to

computers or

Tablets

institutions

will push

their

students to

have digital

devices to

access the

LMS

All Private

HE and

TVET

students

will have

1:10 access

by 2025

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et.

Faculty will develop course

content for online as well as

offline access when the

LMS is in place so that

students can download the

content on-campus and use

it offline later

Students can use the off-

campus internet cafes built

through PPP and partnership

with regional education

bureaus with subsidized

payment scheme

Strategy to Build Learning Centers

Learning centers are an important part of this strategy to offer students with the necessary access

to the LMS and time for exercise. Some public HEIs often have computer labs in their departments

and open access in their libraries as well as dormitories. However, this may not be the case for

most CTE and TVET institutes and the new 3rd and 4th generation universities. Government can

build learning centers by using different approaches as shown in the table below.

Table 27: Strategy to build learning centers

Internet

access on

campus

(scale)18

Internet

access off

campus

Strategy to build learning centers. (number of learning centers

to build, number of students served by each learning center,

locations of learning centers, rationale)

Public HEIs Most Few • Build learning centers/computer labs within each college for

students’ access.

• Equip Libraries with computers and open 24 hours so that

students can have access anytime and live-in students can

have 24/7 access

18 All (90-100%), Most (70%-89%), Some (40%-69%), Few (10%-39%),


Digital Skills Country Action Plan for Ethiopian HE and TVET Institutions Page 52

• Computer laboratories built within dormitory buildings can be

used to increase access to computers

• Off-campus internet cafes and tutorial centers can be built in

all the regions via PPP or in collaboration with regional

Education Bureaus

Public

TVETs and

CTEs

Few Few • Build learning centers/computer labs within each TVET and

CTE for student access.

• Equip Libraries with computers and open each for 24/7 so that

students can have access anytime

• Off-campus internet cafes and tutorial centers can be built in

all the regions via PPP or in collaboration with regional

Education Bureaus

The following table shows the strategies for selecting and offering courses.

Table 28: Strategy for course selection and prioritization

Strategy to expand and

improve the use of

technology for teaching

and learning

Courses prioritized to meet

the goal of expanding and

improving online courses

Why these courses?

Institutions to

provide these

courses

Strategy 1: Modify

existing introductory

courses to teach

beginners/fundamental

digital skills

• Fundamentals of ICT and

• Emerging Technologies

These courses already exist

in the curriculum of HE

and TVET institutions and

require less effort to

modify them to fit the

purpose

Public HE and

TVET institutions

Strategy 2: Select

courses that are given

across academic units in

HE and TVET

institutions to be offered

in blended form using

technology

• Word Processing,

• Basic English Skills,

• Report Writing and

Communication Skills, and

• Citation and Referencing

Skills

• Any other course useful for

teaching courses in blended

form

These courses are common

to most academic units

across multiple HE and

TVET institutions

Public HE and

TVET institutions

Selection of Digital Tools, Development of Faculty, and Establishment of Minimum

Standards and Guidelines

Digital tools that will be offered online to faculty need to be selected and prioritized. Once faculty

is skilled with the selected digital tools, they can start using the same digital tools to enhance their

teaching.



Table 29: Digital tools and faculty development

Tool Type Tools planned to be used in service of

expanding and improving the use of

technology for teaching and learning

at selected universities

Current Faculty

Usage

Current Student

Usage

Learning Management

System

LMS None None

Content Delivery and

Presentation tools

MS-Power point Most teachers Some for

presentation

Assessment, Proctoring and

Quizzing tools

• e-mail, Telegram

• Google forms

• LMS

Most

None

None

Most

None

None

Content, Coaching and

Aggregator tools

None None

Research and Organization

tools

Project management tools Few None

Communications tools • Email,

• social media,

• portal

All

Most

Few

All

Most

Few

Mobile Applications • Email, SMS,

• Google Meet,

• All

• Few

• All

• Few

Other Digital Tools • Digital Library

• Staff evaluation system,

• ISMIS integrated student

management information system

• Few • Few

Faculty Development and Minimum Standards and Guidelines: Strategy to Develop

Faculty

Faculty need to develop their digital skills on the selected tools prior to the students since they

have to use their knowledge to enhance the delivery of their courses. To this end, a minimum

standard need to be set for faculty on their level of knowledge and use of digital skills for teaching

learning as well as research.

Table 30: Minimum standards for faculty digital skills development

Strategy to develop faculty in the use of these tools.

Approach, timeline, supports to utilize, numbers of

faculty needing training, measurable outcomes.

Minimum standards and guidelines for

expanding and improving online coursework

under this sub-strategy

• Provide blended (face-to-face supported by LMS)

education to faculty for intermediate digital skill

• Put in place policy and guidelines for faculty on the

regular use of learning tools by 2021/22

• Revise the HE and TVET institutions staff promotion

legislations to include use of technology as one criterion

by 2022/23

• Incentivize staffs using the tools for teaching learning

• The faculty trained in digital skills tools must

use their skills to teach their courses in blended

form

• Students who have taken beginners digital skill

course should take their courses via blended

methods



Strategy to develop faculty in the use of these tools.

Approach, timeline, supports to utilize, numbers of

faculty needing training, measurable outcomes.

Minimum standards and guidelines for

expanding and improving online coursework

under this sub-strategy

• Revise the academic staff evaluation forms to include

use of technology in teaching learning by 2021/22

Changes to Policies, Regulations and/or Rules to Achieve Strategy

The successful implementation of this strategy requires new policies and guidelines to enforce

some of the necessary activities. The policies necessary to implement the overall digital skills

country action plan are set out in strategy 1.


The following table describes the timeline for activities as well as the indicators for this strategy.

The following are the timeline for the implementation of the activities.

Table 31: Implementation Timeline

Milestones Timeline Responsible Body Deliverables

Establish collaboration with

partners to deliver selected

courses

June

2021

MoSHE, EthERNet Partnership established

Develop digital skills courses to

be delivered online for instructors

July 2021 Partner institutions Courses online and instructors

ready to be enrolled

Launch online courses for HE and

TVET instructors

June

2022

MoSHE, HE and TVET,

EthERNet

10000 instructors from HE and

TVET trained

Develop online course for

students (for digital skills and the

selected courses)

Jan 2022 MoSHE Courses online and students

ready to be enrolled

Launch online course for students June

2021

MoSHE, HE, TVET 200,000 students certified with

intermediate level digital skills

and ready to take technology

supported courses

Increase blended (technology

supported) courses

Sep 2021 MoSHE, HE and TVET 10 courses selected by the

departments are online

Assemble ERP project team. June 2021 MoSHE, HE and TVET Team established

Create ERP implementation plan Oct 2021 MoSHE, HE, and TVET Plan developed

Carry out a comprehensive

assessment of the current business

processes and requirements in

Higher Education Institutions and

TVETs

April

2022

MoSHE, HE, and TVET Assessment report

Prepare the infrastructure/hardware

for deployment

June 2022 MoSHE, HE, and TVET Hardware purchased



Implement Enterprise Architecture

Project

Sept.

2022

MoSHE, HE, and TVET System implemented

Knowledge Transfer and

Technology Ownership included as

part of the project

Dec. 2022 MoSHE, HE, and TVET Awareness created

Implement Student Identification

(ID) - Biometric Registration of

Students for HE

April.

2022

MoSHE, HE, and TVET System implemented

Establish a Centre for Technology

Enhanced Learning (CTEL) in all

HEIs

June 2022 MoSHE and

HEIs

CTEL

Re-design existing space to create

more flexibility for teaching

learning

June 2022 MoSHE and

HEIs

Flexible learning classrooms

Upgrade the technological

functionality of existing facilities

June 2022 HEIs Technologically enhanced

facilities

Develop new building codes that

help technology enhanced learning

June 2022 MoSHE and

HEIs

Building code

Make sure all new buildings have

Internet and wireless networks,

electric and fiber optics outlets, and

learning furniture and technologies

integrated into their designs

June 2030 MoSHE and

HEIs

Tech supporting buildings

Establish smart classrooms to

facilitate blended and online

teaching and learning in HEIs

June 2023 MoSHE and

HEIs

Smart classrooms

Ensure that classrooms have

sufficient wireless capacity and

charging facilities maintained to

support online teaching learning

June 2023 MoSHE and

HEIs

Internet access and charging

facilities in classrooms

Create a fully wireless, “bring-

your-own-device”-ready campus

by 2025

June 2025 MoSHE and

HEIs

Wireless ready campuses

Implement a Standard learning

management system provided from

the local cloud across all HEIs to

support the blended and online

learning

June 2023 MoSHE and

HEIs

Cloud based LMS

Implement Virtual Reality (VR),

Augmented Reality (AR) and

virtual laboratories

June 2023 MoSHE and

HEIs

Anything reality

Implementation of anti-plagiarism

software

June 2023 MoSHE and

HEIs

Unified anti-plagiarism

Establish an assistive technologies

lab with state-of-the-art equipment

for special needs students and

faculty

June 2025 MoSHE

HEIs

Assistive tech Labs for special

needs




Key performance indicators (KPIs) are defined to measure the implementation against the defined

set of goals in each strategy. The table below presents the major KPIs and the timeline for their

implementation.

Table 32: Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Strategy Indicators Baseline

Timeline in Academic Year

2021/

2022

2022/

2023

2023/

2024

2024/

2025

2025/

2026

2029/

2030

Expanding

and

improving

online course

work

No of students trained in

fundamental digital skills

(Fundamentals of ICT)

• Very few 25% 50% 75% 100% - -

No of faculty trained in

fundamental digital skills

(Fundamentals of ICT) in

rapid skilling program

• Very few 25% 50% 75% 100% - -

Expanding

and

improving

the use of

technology

for teaching

learning

No of faculty trained in the

selected digital skills

courses in rapid skilling

• Very few 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% -

Number of students

enrolled in courses

delivered in blended form • None 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% -

Provide support with special needs

technology - such as text-to-speech

and speech-to-text software, a

screen reader, note-taking

solutions, magnification products,

and iPads equipped with

educational apps etc.

June 2025 MoSHE and

HEIs

Tech to support special needs

Implement a research data

management and access system for

researchers based on the needs

assessment

June 2025 MoSHE and

HEIs

National Research data

management

Establish a nation-wide High-

Performance Computing

Infrastructure at national

levels/EthERNet.

June 2025 MoSHE and

HEIs

HPC infrastructure

Implement a unified and integrated

management information system

for all Higher Education and

training Institutions at EthERNet

June 2025 MoSHE and

HEIs

Single Unified management

information system

Strengthen national and

institutional digital libraries

facilities and strive to establish a

dynamic virtual library with virtual

discovery capabilities

June 2025 MoSHE and

HEIs

National and institutional digital

libraries facilities





2021/

2022

2022/

2023

2023/

2024

2024/

2025

2025/

2026

2029/

2030

Implement a

Unified

Automated

Management

Information

System

An enterprise architecture

developed • Very few 1 - - - - -

Implemented Unified

Automated Management

Information System (No. of

modules implemented)

• None 10 12 All - - -

No of higher education

institutions getting the

services • Very few 50% 100% - - - -

No of TVET institutions

getting the services • None 20% 50% - - - -

No of HE students

benefited from Biometric

ID • None 25% 50% 100% - - -

SLA and Issue Tracking

Developed • None 15% 30% 50% 100% - -

DW and BI Solution

Developed • None 15% 30% 50% 100% - -

No of functional units

getting the SLA, DW and

BI • None 5% 15% 30% 50% 100% -

Activities to

Develop ICT

Supported

Teaching-

Learning

Space

No of CTELs established • None 10% 25% 50% 75% 100% -

ToR for Tech supported

classes spaces prepared • None

100% - - - - -

No of HEIs with plan to

develop Tech supported

teaching learning space • None 50% 100% - - - -

No of HEIs with Tech

supported teaching learning

space • None 20% 50% 75% 100% - -

No of classrooms with Tech

support • None 20% 50% 75% 100% - -

Cloud based LMS

Implemented • None - 100% - - - -

Activities to

Implement

Assistive

Technologies

for Special

Needs

Number of HEIs

conducting Assistive

Technology research

• 5% 10% 25% 50% 100% - -

Number of Assistive tech

labs established • None 10% 25% 50% 100% - -

Number of software/tools

purchased • None 10% 25% 50% 100% - -

No of I-Pads with the

necessary tools distributed

to assist the disabled

• None 25% 50% 100% - - -

Activities to

Support

Research and

Anti-plagiarism software

provided • 5% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% -

No of labs established • 1% 10% 20% 50% 80% 100% -





2021/

2022

2022/

2023

2023/

2024

2024/

2025

2025/

2026

2029/

2030

Innovation

Using Digital

Technologies

No of software/tools

purchased • 5% 20% 40% 75% 100% - -

National research data

service at EthERNet • 30% 40% 60% 80% 100% - -

Coordinate and plan

utilization of HPC • 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% - -

No standardized Unified

management information

system

• 20% 30% 40% 60% 80% 100% -

Established Unified digital

library • 15% 40% 60% 80% 100% - -

Activities to

Implement

AI and OER

No of Established AI

offices • None 10% 20% 50% 100% - -

No of AI Labs established

in HEIs • None 10% 20% 50% 100% - -

No of Collaborating HEIs

and TVETs in sharing

resources

• 10% 20% 50% 100% - - -

No of Established OER

offices • None 10% 20% 50% 100% - -

No of OER collaborations

established • None 10% 20% 50% 100% - -

No of MOOC developed • None 10% 20% 50% 100% - -

Augmented and Virtual

Reality implemented • None 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% -


The estimated budget (in thousands of Ethiopian Birr) required to successfully implement this

strategy is shown in the tables below as capital and recurrent costs respectively for the coming 10

years.

The cost planning considers key facts and conditions such as the number of HE and TVET

institutions and the number of students in these institutions.



Capital Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.1: Expanding and Improving Online Course Work

Capital Expenditure in thousands of Birrs

2021 - Year 1

2022 - Year 2

2023 - Year 3

2024 - Year 4

2025 - Year 5

2026 - Year 6

2027 - Year 7

2028 - Year 8

2029 - Year 9

2030 - Year 10

Total 10 Years

ICT Infrastructure

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Learning platforms and DLR

-

8,000

4,000

4,000

4,000

4,000

4,000

4,000

4,000

4,000

40,000

Professional Development

11,800

11,800

11,800

11,800

11,800

5,040

5,040

5,040

5,040

5,040

84,200

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Total Cost

11,800

19,800

15,800

15,800

15,800

9,040

9,040

9,040

9,040

9,040

124,200

Recurrent Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.1: Expanding and Improving Online Course Work

Operational Expenditure in thousands of Birrs

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total

10 years

ICT Infrastructure

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Learning platforms

and DLR

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Professional

Development

2,732

5,464

5,464

5,464

5,464

3,379

624

624

624

624

30,463

Monitoring,

Evaluation and

Learning

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Total Cost

2,732

5,464

5,464

5,464

5,464

3,379

624

624

624

624 30,463

Total Cost for Sub-Strategy 3.1: Expanding and Improving Online Course Work (Distance Learning and Brick and

Mortar Settings)

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total

10 years

Total cost 40,000 48,000 60,000 80,000 88,000 96,000 100,000 120,000 - - 632,000



Capital Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.2: Expanding and Improving the Use of Technology for Teaching Learning

in Classrooms


2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 Years

ICT

Infrastructure

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Professional

Development

-

47,800

47,800

47,800

47,800

47,800

4,780

4,780

4,780

4,780

258,120

Total Cost

-

47,800

47,800

47,800

47,800

47,800

4,780

4,780

4,780

4,780

258,120

Recurrent Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.2: Expanding and Improving the Use of Technology for Teaching

Learning in Classrooms


2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 years

ICT

Infrastructure

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Professional

Development

-

2,600

2,600

2,600

2,600

3,120

312

312

312

312

14,768

Total Cost

-

2,600

2,600

2,600

2,600

3,120

312

312

312

312

14,768

Total Cost for Sub-Strategy 3.2: Expanding and Improving the Use of Technology for Teaching Learning in Classrooms

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total

10 Years

Total cost 40,000 44,000 48,000 52,000 56,000 60,000 64,000 68,000 72,000 76,000

580,000



Capital Budget for strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.3: Implementing a Unified Automated Management Information System Capital Expenditure in thousands of Birrs

2021 –

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 years

Enterprise Architecture

Development 40,000 - - - - 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 240,000

Unified MIS applications 200,000

400,000

400,000 200,000

400,000 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 1,800,000

ICT Infrastructure -

200,000

120,000 - - 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 520,000

Biometric SID and

Registration 80,000

100,000 80,000 200,000 20,000 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 680,000

Knowledge Transfer and

Technology Ownership - 8,000 16,000 8,000 8,000 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 240,000

Total Cost 320,000

708,000

616,000 408,000

428,000 200,000

200,000

200,000 200,000 200,000 3,480,000

Recurrent Budget for strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.3: Implementing a Unified Automated Management Information System Recurrent Expenditure in thousands of Birrs

2021 –

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 years

Human Resources 6,000 4,500 4,500 4,500 4,500 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 224,000

Monitoring, Evaluation

and Learning 6,000 4,020 4,020 4,020 4,020 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 222,080

Consultancy for Develop an

enterprise architecture 12,000 11,000 11,000 12,500 12,500 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 259,000

Professional and Capacity

Development 4,000 7,000 7,000 4,500 4,500 40,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 227,000

Total Cost 28,000 26,520 26,520 25,520 25,520 160,000

160,000

160,000 160,000 160,000 932,080

Total Cost for Sub-Strategy 3.3: Implementing a Unified Automated Management Information System

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total

10 Years

Total cost 348,000 734,520 642,520 433,520 453,520 360,000 360,000 360,000 360,000 360,000 4,412,080



Capital Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.4: Developing ICT Supported Teaching-Learning Space


2021

–

Year

1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027

–

Year

7

2028

–

Year

8

2029

–

Year

9

2030

–

Year

10

Total

10 years

Establish CTEL 0 140,000 140,000 140,000 140,000 140,000 0 0 0 0 700,000

Smart classrooms for HEIs 0 0 50,000 50,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 100,000

Enhance existing classrooms 0 0 50,000 50,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 100,000

Establishing support office 0 70,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 70,000

Implement cloud based LMS 0 10,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10,000

Implementation of anti-plagiarism tool 0 70,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 70,000

Total Cost - 290,000 240,000 240,000 140,000.00 140,000 - - - - 1,050,000

Recurrent Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.4: Developing ICT Supported Teaching-Learning Space

Recurrent Expenditure in thousands of Birrs

2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029

Year

9

2030 –

Year

10

Total

10 years

Establish CTEL 10,000 10 ,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 70,000

Smart classrooms for HEIs 10,000 10,000

Total Cost 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000.00 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 - - 110,000

Total Cost for Sub-Strategy 3.4: Developing ICT Supported Teaching-Learning Space

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total

10 Years

Total cost 10,000 300,000 305.000 250,000 150,000 150,000 10,000 10,000 0 0 1,215,000



Capital Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.5: Implement Assistive Technologies to Meet the Needs of the People with

Special Needs


2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027

–

Year

7

2028

–

Year

8

2029

–

Year

9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 years

Assistive technology lab 0 70,000 70,000 70,000 70,000 70,000 0 0 0 0 350,000

Software and tools for

special needs & disability 0 20 ,000 20 ,000 10 ,000 10 ,000 10 ,000 0 0 0 0 70 ,000

I-pads with software 0 10,000 10,000 10,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 30,000

Total Cost 0 100,000 100,000 90,000 80,000 80,000 0 0 0 0 450,000

Recurrent Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.5: Implement Assistive Technologies to Meet the Needs of the People

with Special Needs


2021 –

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 years

Assistive technology lab 0 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 9,000

Software and tools for

special needs 0 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 4,500

I-pads with software 0 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 9,000

Total Cost 0 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 22,500

Total Cost for Sub-Strategy 3.5: Implement Assistive Technologies to Meet the Needs of the People with Special Needs

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total

10 Years

Total cost 0 102,500 102,500 92,500 82,500 82,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 472,500

Capital Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.6: Support Research and Innovation Using Digital Technologies




2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

202

5 –

Yea

r 5

202

6 –

Yea

r 6

202

7 –

Yea

r 7

202

8 –

Yea

r 8

202

9 –

Yea

r 9

203

0 –

Yea

r 10

Total

10 years

Integrated national and institutional digital libraries

facilities 0 30,000 30,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 60,000

National research data service at EthERNet 0 40,000 30,000 30,000 0 0 0 0 0 0 100,000

National HPC at EthERNet 0 400,00

0

400,00

0

400,00

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1,200,00

0

Single Unified management information system at

EthERNet 0

100,00

0

100,00

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 200,000

Total Cost 0

570,00

0

560,00

0

430,00

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1,560,00

0

Recurrent Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.6: Support Research and Innovation Using Digital Technologies


2021 –

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 years

Integrated national and institutional digital

libraries facilities 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 0 0 0 0 0 10,000

Single Unified management information

system at EthERNet 1,500 1,500 1,000 1,000 1,000 0 0 0 0 0 6,000

Total Cost 3,500 3,500 3,000 3,000 3,000 0 0 0 0 0 16,000

Total Cost for Sub-Strategy 3.6: Support Research and Innovation Using Digital Technologies

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total

10 Years

Total cost 3,500 573,500 563,500 433,000 3,000 0 0 0 0 0 1,576,000

Capital Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.7: Implement AI and OER




2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 years

Establish AI Lab 0 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 0 0 0 0 500,000

Implement (VR), (AR) & virtual

laboratories 0 0

55,000

.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 55,000

Adopt OER in HE and TVET

institutions 0 100.00 87.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 187

Implementation and use of OER 0 100.00 87.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 187

Total Cost 0 100,200 155,174 100,000 100,000 100,000 0 0 0 0 555,374

Recurrent Budget for Strategy 3: Sub-Strategy 3.7: Implement AI and OER


2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total

10 years

Establish AI Office 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 10,000

Establish AI Lab 0 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,00

0 100,000 0 0 0 0 500,000

Total Cost 1,000 101,000 101,000 101,000

101,00

0 101,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 510,000

Total Cost for Sub-Strategy 3.7: Implement AI and OER

2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total

10 Years

Total cost 1,000 201,200 256,174 201,000 201,000 201,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,065,374

Total Budget for Strategy 3 – Enhance Use of Technology in Teaching Learning, Research, and Administration

Digital Skills Country Action Plan, Strategy 3 - Total Budget for the year 2021 to 2030 in thousands of Birrs Strategies / Sub-strategies

- DSCAP

Year 1

–

2021

Year 2

–

2022

Year 3 -

2023

Year 4 -

2024

Year 5

–

2025

Year 6

–

2026

Year 7

–

2027

Year 8

–

2028

Year 9 –

2029

Year 10

–

2030

Total

3.1. Expanding and

improving online 40,000 48,000 60,000 80,000 88,000 96,000 100,000 120,000 0 0 632,000



course work (distance


mortar settings)

3.2. Expanding and

improving the use of

technology for

teaching and learning

in classrooms

40,000 44,000 48,000 52,000 56,000 60,000 64,000 68,000 72,000 76,000

580,000

3.3. Implementing a Unified

Automated

Management

Information System for

HEIs and TVETs

348,000 734,520 642,520 433,520 453,520 360,000 360,000 360,000 360,000 360,000 4,412,080

3.4 Developing ICT

Supported Teaching-

Learning Space

10,000 300,000 305.000 250,000 150,000 150,000 10,000 10,000 0 0 1,215,000

3.5. Implement Assistive

Technologies to Meet

the Needs of the People

with Speech, Dexterity,

Vision, Hearing and

Cognitive Difficulties

0 102,500 102,500 92,500 82,500 82,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 472,500

3.6. Support Research and

Innovation Using

Digital Technologies

3,500 573,500 563,500 433,000 3,000 0 0 0 0 0 1,576,000

3.7 Implement Artificial

Intelligence (AI) and

Open Educational

Resources (OER)

1,000 201,200 256,174 201,000 201,000 201,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,065,374

Total for Strategy 3 428,000 826,520 750,520 565,520 597,520 516,000 524,000 548,000 432,000 436,000 5,624,080

4.4. Strategy 4 - Connect HE and TVET institutions to Affordable High-

Speed Broadband and Improving Campus Network Digital

Services

The digital transformation strategy for Africa (2020-2030) builds among others on the existing

initiatives and frameworks such as the Policy and Regulatory Initiative for Digital Africa (PRIDA),

and the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA. The vision of digital

transformation in Africa is to create an integrated and inclusive Digital Society and Economy in

Africa that improves the quality of life of Africa’s citizens. The overall objective accordingly

states: to harness digital technologies and innovation to transform Africa’s societies and economies

to promote Africa’s integration, generate inclusive economic growth, stimulate job creation, erase

the digital divide, and eradicate poverty to secure the benefits of digital revolution for socio-

economic development. The Ethiopian scenario follows the same suit.

The Digital Ethiopia, 2025, asserts that the requirement for balancing the benefits and costs of new

digital technologies is to ensure that policies towards digital transformation are aligned with the

country’s national development vision, policy objectives and priorities. In Ethiopia, this would

mean aligning the digital transformation strategy with the country’s development plan, particularly

the new ten-year plan such as the sectorial priorities, for instance Education. It would also mean

aligning digital transformation with the country’s desire to create “decent” and productive jobs,

promote inclusive growth and harness the competitive advantages that new digital technologies

offer.

As part of the new ten-year national development plan of the country, the Ministry of Science and

Higher Education (MoSHE) of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia initiated a project to

develop a National Digital Skills and Infrastructure Strategy and Action Plan for Ethiopian HEIs

and Technical and Vocational Education and Training TVET (2020-2030). Only public HEIs are

considered in this document. About 88 public HEIs are identified of which 50 are universities and

38 are Colleges of Teachers Training (CTE). The number of public TVETs is 674. The envisaged

strategy and action plan will be employed by all HE and TVET institutions throughout Ethiopia in

the coming 10 years. Accordingly, MoSHE organized teams of experts drawn from various

stakeholders to engage in five strategy teams of which one is strategy 4 that aims at strengthening

or establishing National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) – Ethiopian Education and

Research Network (EthERNet) in the Ethiopian case and Modernization of Campus Networks and

IT preparedness at the campus level. This strategy has two components. These include: Sub-

Strategy 4.1: Strengthen EthERNet and Sub-Strategy 4.2: Modernization of Campus Networks

and Digital Services (CaNDiS). See section 3 for more information.

This is to provide effective broadband access all the way to faculty and students as well as

supporting administrative personnel in higher education and TVET institutions and develop

capacity to manage the campus infrastructure and digital services to put the digital infrastructure



in real academic use. A national compendium of campus network modernization plan is prepared.

For the purpose, the higher education and TVET institutions were categorized based on number of

students and faculty Universities by generation and number of campuses are also used as criteria

to perform the categorization. What is more the newly crafted categorization scheme proposed by

MoSHE is considered. For instance, the proposed categorization that classifies universities in to

four (research, applied, general and specialized). Accordingly, the research oriented are of first

generation and with high number of students (>=35,000) and academic population and the new

generations are of general universities and with a smaller number of students. But those

categorized as applied and those general universities with medium size of student population (more

than 15, 000) are somehow mixed. Taking into consideration the pattern observed on the basis of

the criteria indicated, two scenarios or options emerged for classifying the universities. The

scenarios more and more consider the number of students, faculty, and number of campuses.

Scenario 1 has four classes: (Research oriented and Large Universities with student population

>=35, 000, Large universities with student population between 20,000 and 35,000, Medium ones

with student population between 10,000 and 20,000, and Small universities with student

population < 10,000). Scenario 2 has three classes: (Research oriented and Large Universities

with student population >=35,000, Large and medium universities, which are both applied, general

and specialized with student population between 10,000 and 35,000, and Small ones with student

population < 10,000). As considerable number of College of Teachers Education (CTE) on average

has nearly 5,000 students, they are considered as small universities. Note that the CTEs are

considered as universities in this work. Scenario 2 is selected as appropriate to determine the

goals, strategize the required elements for the coming ten years, and the action plans and

activities associated with the plans.

As for the TVET institutions, the criteria set for categorization are of natural one and artificial.

The natural division (Scenario 1) is based on the categorization scheme already in use by MoSHE

and TVET Agency, which is by level of education. They are of four categories: Federal level

TVET institutes that teach both Bachelor and Masters students, TVET Poly-technique Schools

named as Level Five that offer Bachelor equivalent education, TVET Colleges named as Level III

& IV that provide diploma and advanced diploma, TVET institutes labeled as Level I & II that

provide certificates. The neutral categorization (Scenario 2) considers the level and the number

of students. The federal TVET institutes (FTI) and those TVETs with more than 5,000 of student

population are in the first class, in the second class are all Poly-technique schools and in the third

class will be all level I – IV TVETs. It should be noted that FTI is established by Council of

Ministers Regulation number 245/2011 similar to any government higher institute (university)

under MoSHE. What is more, according to the newly crafted categorization scheme of universities

proposed by MoSHE, FTI is categorized under the specialized educational institutions group,

together with ASTU and AASTU. Scenario 2 is selected as appropriate to determine the goals,

strategize the required elements for the coming ten years, and the action plans and activities

associated with the plans.



Based on the baseline data collected and analyzed, the strategies and the associated goals identified

and measured using indicators are presented in this document. The activities required to meet the

goals are listed. The HR structure for both the EthERNet and Campus (Institution) levels is

presented. The implementation timeline is specified as well as the cost sheets for addressing the

strategies are depicted.

Furthermore, the policies to be crafted that have strong relevance to strategy 4 (connect HE and

TVET institutions to affordable high-speed broadband and improve campus network and digital

services) include: 1. create a fully wireless, “bring-your-own-device”-ready campus, BYOD

policy, 2. develop EthERNet policy for a business plan for EthERNet for it to become a fully

functional National Research and Education Network, 3. develop a policy for an Enterprise

Architecture for Higher Education and TVET Institutions, 4. develop interoperability framework

policy, 5. Develop security policy, 6. develop HPC use and management policy.

The focus of The Digital Skills Country Action Plan (DSCAP) is on developing digital skills

proficiency at the intermediate and advanced levels and beyond for students and academics in

higher education and TVET institutions. The DSCAP shows the goals up to 2030 with measurable

targets and lay out strategies, activities, costs, and a detailed implementation plan covering the

period 2020-25 to achieve these goals and targets. The five strategies are interdependent to each

other. For instance, strategy 4 requires among others the knowhow of the institutions in terms of

their profile related to number of the academic community, the layout of the campuses, the current

infrastructure and its management including the future plans, as well as the propositions by all the

rest of strategies and specifically the outputs of Strategy 2 and Strategy 3. The contribution of

strategy 4 will be by availing the necessary infrastructure, platforms, and operations to run on-line

learning systems and make them efficient and effective through the management of the

technologies eventually enabling to facilitate developing digital skills proficiency at the

intermediate and advanced levels and beyond for both the learners and educators in HE and TVET

institutions. The table below presents the relationship among the strategies.


The table below shows the status of the current connections both at HEIs and TVETs and national

levels based on the collected data so far.

Table 33: Status of Current Connections at HEIs and TVETs

Current Status Update

1

Number of institutions that are

connected currently to NREN

(EthERNet)

36 universities are connected to the EthERNet with 10Gbps.

Internet is leased not fiberized et.

The rest of the universities have poor infrastructure.

2 Geographical coverage of EthERNet 4841 Km of fiber is used. As all TVET institutions are not

connected, more fiber connections are required. This applies for



Current Status Update

some of the universities such as the College of Teachers Education

(CTE). See at the end of the table current fiber connections in the

country. It is assumed more cities and towns should be connected to

address the indicated connections for TVET and CTE.

3 State of manpower and skill of

EthERNet

Relatively good structure but not filled with several positions (See

sub-strategy 4.1)

4 Campus network in the HE and

TVET institutions

Most HEIs have campus networks and Internet Connections

Federal level TVET institutes and the TVET colleges such as those

in the capital have Internet connections

All other TVET colleges and institutes do not have connections even

within the campuses.

5 Percentage of campus area has Wi-Fi

coverage?

Quite a number of them have but not sufficient Universities have 5

to 10 Access points peer campus on average TVET Poly-technique

institutes have 2 on average There are none of them in most TVET

colleges

6 Status of network connectivity of

students and staff at home?

Almost none. All staff if connected to the Internet from home is at

their own cost.

7

How many students have access (i.e.,

broadband, laptop and devices, and

broadband coverage) to connect from

home?

Almost none.

8 How many universities have ERP? Almost none. There are student management systems at some

universities.

9

How many universities have access

to LMS platform (number of courses

online)?

With the prevalence of Covid-19, a few institutions are attempting.

Generally, none have exercised it.

10

How many students, teachers and

staff have university provided

campus identity?

Only a few of them.

11

Status of IT workforce in the

campuses (number, skill, and

training)?

There are structures for the HR, however, some positions are not

filled and lack of the required skills on the part of the existing

experts

12

All College of Teachers (CTE) are

considered for this work as

universities. None of them have

computing facilities including

networks and Internet connection.

Significant number of CTEs has no ICT Office.

Sub-strategies

Two sub strategies are identified. While the first is of national level, the second is at campus

(university) level. The strategies as mentioned in the introduction part of this strategy 4 are

presented as follows.



Sub-strategy 4.1: Strengthen EthERNet: The purpose of this activity is to ensure abundant and

reliable digital connectivity to higher education and TVET institutions in Ethiopia and includes

development of capacity to manage networks and data infrastructure including a management and

human resource plan. Upgrading of EthERNet is proposed as part of this sub-strategy.

Sub-strategy 4.2: Modernization of Campus Networks and Digital Services (CaNDiS): This is to

provide effective broadband access all the way to faculty and students as well as supporting

administrative personnel in higher education and TVET institutions and develop capacity to

manage the campus infrastructure and digital services to put the digital infrastructure in real

academic use.

Nationwide availability of high-speed and affordable Internet can provide many benefits for

Ethiopia. Learners and educators perform better if provided with technological equipment. The

scenario of developing economies is devastating since there are shortages available facilities for

learning. Not only urban spaces but remote area students with lack of infrastructure and appliances

need to communicate with their colleagues and teachers and access online educational content and

obtain current information related to their academic activities. The academic and research

community could contribute to the digital economy. In short, the country can generate digital

dividends growth, jobs and innovation from its digital infrastructure propelled by a digital strategy

and supported by digital components. Digital skills of the population are of paramount importance.

Countries like Ethiopia need a long way to go to attain the position of digitally enable economy

due to such factors as accessing to affordable connectivity to the Internet. Affordable bulk

bandwidth is then critical for the country to develop and capitalize on its digital skill. This requires

capable digital services such as ERP, LMS, and e-learning services running in the campuses,

backed by capable IT engineers, and strong campus network and a fiber-based EthERNet to

provide the national education bandwidth affordably. Therefore, attention is required to reach to

the level required. Two sub-strategies are proposed: 1. Strengthen the EthERNet infrastructure and

its management capacity and 2. Modernize Campus Networks and Digital Services (CaNDiS) and

the management of the same.

Enhancing the EthERNet requires upgrading the current fiber connectivity to a higher level as well

as adding more fiber connections to those yet to be connected HEI and TVET institutions.

Moreover, availing high-speed bandwidth is crucial to all institutions be it small or large depending

on the size of their needs. Such national level upgrade of bandwidth is critical to all institutions if

the desired goal of DSCAP is to be achieved. Placing national infrastructure like EthERNet and

availing the necessary bandwidth for HEIs and TVETs institutions is not enough. It should be

backed up with the necessary management to re-design, install, configure, administer, and monitor

to bring about the full potential of the implemented systems. For this purpose, it is important to

revisit the management structure and reform it in such a way that a positive difference/change can

be made.



What is more, EthERNet could contribute to the development of the digital economy if and only

if the campus networks are equally enhanced where available and established where the is no

infrastructure. Modernizing the campus digital infrastructure should be done to enable learners and

educators to easily access both the intranet and internet from anywhere (classrooms, labs,

dormitory, offices, etc.) without difficulty. Enabling the academic and research community to use

and innovate with the emerging technologies should as well be implemented to provide more

useful services. Like the EthERNet HR structure requires reform, the same has to be done for the

university/campus IT units that would entertain positions with hardware and software engineering

talent and the ability to administer systems and networks.


As mentioned in the section previously, the proposal for classifying the HE intuitions follows two

scenarios as shown below:

Scenario 1 has four classes: (Research oriented and Large Universities with student population

more than 35, 000, Large universities with student population between 20,000 and 35,000,

Medium ones with student population between 10,000 and 20,000, and Small universities with

student population less than 10,000).

Scenario 2 has three classes: (Research oriented and Large Universities with student population

more than 35,000, Large and medium universities, which are both applied, general and specialized

with student population between 10,000 and 35,000, and small ones with student population less

than 10,000).

Likewise, two scenarios are proposed for TVET institutions. Scenario 1 has four categories named

as Federal TVET, Level V TVET, level III-IV, and level 1 -II. Scenario 2 includes: 1. federal

TVETs and TVETs with more than 5,000 of student population are in the first class, 2. all Poly-

technique schools and 3. all level I – IV TVETs.

The following two tables depict the categories mentioned, student population, link capacity,

bandwidth and the number of experts required to manage, which are not considered for further

process.

Table 34: Category (Scenario 1) for HEIs (Not considered for further process)

Category (Scenario 1) Student Link Capacity Bandwidth 2025 IS/IT Skill

Research oriented and

Large Universities >=35,000 4x10 Gbps 2x10 Gbps ~200

Large universities 20,000 – 35,000 2X10 Gbps 1 X 10 Gbps ~150

Medium universities 10,000 – 20,000 10 Gbps 1 X 10 Gbps ~100

Small Universities <10,000 5x1 Gbps 5X 1 Gbps ~ 50



Table 35: Category (Scenario 2) for HEIs (Considered for further process)

Category (Scenario 2) Student Link Capacity Bandwidth 2025 IS/IT Skill

Research oriented and Large Universities >=35,000 4x10 Gbps 2x10 Gbps ~200

Medium and Large universities 10,000 – 35,000 2X10 Gbps 1 X 10 Gbps ~150

Small Universities <10,000 5x1 Gbps 5X 1 Gbps ~ 50

All the scenarios described above are depicted in the following 4 tables

Table 36: Category (Scenario 1) for TVETs (Not considered for further process)

Category (Scenario 2) Student Link

Capacity

Bandwidth

2025

IS/IT

Skill

Federal Level TVET Institutions Any number of students 3x1 Gbps 3x1 Gbps ~30

All Level V TVET Institutions Any number of students 2X1 Gbps 2X1 Gbps ~20

All Level III- V TVET Institutions Any number of students 1 Gbps 1 Gbps ~ 10

All Level I – II TVET Institutions Any number of students 1 Gbps 1 Gbps ~ 5

Table 37: Category (Scenario 2) for TVETs (Considered for further process)

Category (Scenario 2) Student Link

Capacity

Bandwidth

2023/2025

IS/IT

Skill

Federal level TVET Institutes & Level V Poly

technique with student population >=5,000 (Large

TVETs)

>=5,000 3x1 Gbps 3x1 Gbps ~30

Medium TVETs (all Poly technique TVETs with Level

V)

2,500 –

5,000 2X1 Gbps 2X1 Gbps ~20

Small TVETs (Level I -IV TVETs) <2,500 1 Gbps 1 Gbps ~ 10

Table 38: Indicators & Goals for EthERNet

Indicator Table Baseline Levels of Ambitions (2021-2030)

Goals Indicator 2018-20 Critical

(Min)

Crucial

2025

Aspiration

2030

INCREASE

REACH

1 Number of EthERNet

connected HEIs 52/88 (37%) 57% 80% 100%


connected TVETs 0% 14% 50% 75%


connected students small 40% 80% 100%


connected faculty small 50% 80% 100%

STRENGHTEN

THE NETWORK

5 Total bandwidth

subscription (Gbps) ~20Gbps 60 Gbps 100 Gbps 120Gbps

6 Core Network Speed 10Gbps 50 Gbps 20 Gbps 40 Gbps





(Min)

Crucial

2025

Aspiration

2030

7 Network's Country Geo

Coverage 4841Km fiber 8,000 Km 20,000Km 40,000Km

HR CAPACITY 9 Training of staff (hours) ~10

hours/year

80

hours/year

100

hours/year

100

hours/year

INTEARNATIONAL

LINK

PROVISIONING

10

EthERNet becomes

educational ISP by

2021/2022 0 50Gbps 100Gbps 120Gbps

Note that connecting HEIs will be in order from Research oriented and Large Universities to Medium and Small ones. As for

TVETs, the order of priority will be from Federal TVETs to Level V, IV, III, II and I. Furthermore, both upgrade and new fiber

connections will be done parallel.

Table 39: Indicators & Goals for CaNDiS

Indicator Baseline Levels of Ambitions (2021-2030)


(Min) Crucial 2025

Aspiration

2030

CAPABLE

CAMPUS

NETWORK

1 Number of campuses fiber

upgraded. 7% 30% 50% 80%

2 Number of buildings with

Gbps/connectivity ~7% 30% 50% 80%

3 % of academic areas Wi-Fi

covered ~30 60% 90% 100%

4 Bandwidth per pupil (mbps/p) 0.2 mbps/p .5 mbps/p 1 mbps/p

LAUNCH

DIGITAL

SERVICES

5 Courses on LMS 0 25% 50% 100%

6 Students with universal LMS

access 0 70% 90% 100%

7 Students with Campus

Identity ~5% 30% 80% 100%

8 Campuses on ERP 0 % 50% 75%

ENHANCE

CAPACITY

9 Training of EthERNet + IT

staff (hours) ~10 hours/year

40

hours/year 80 hours/year

100

hours/year

10 Campus IT Team (FTE /1000

students) 0.5 2 3 4

4.4.3. Activities

The following activities need to be performed to successfully achieve the goals set out for this

strategy

Sub-Strategy 4.1 - Activities

The activities for sub-strategy 4.1 are listed in the table below.

Table 40: EthERNet (NREN) Enhancement and HR



Goals Identified Activities

(G1) ENSURE

COMPREHENSIVE

NATIONAL

COVERAGE

G1:A1 Review in detail the EthERNet data center and infrastructure, and data centers of HEI

and TVET institutions to expand the network to connect all public HEIs and TVETs as

well as to include public Teachers' Training Colleges and private HEIs and TVETs.

G1:A2 Identify the enhanced network and network related services portfolio.

G1:A3 Identify the new and enhanced application related services (ERP, LMS, digital library,

tools) those will be needed in next 5 years.

G1:A4 Identify unified security requirements and propose security tools for EthERNet data

center and the connecting nodes to HRIs and TVETs

G1:A5 Re-design in detail EthERNet data center and the core networks

G1:A6 Prepare complete specification, bid document, and enact the standard bidding process,

award, and purchase

G1:A7 Organize the EthERNet Enhancement Project (Generate concrete project plan together

with stakeholders)

(G2)

STRENGHTEN

THE NETWORK

G2:A1 Fiberize the network (Connecting new institutions to EthERNet and upgrade existing

ones)

G2:A2 Upgrade core network equipment

G2:A3 Add additional rings, spars, and POPs

G2:A4 Enhance the security and reliability of the network

(G3) BUILDUP

INSTITUTIONAL

CAPACITY

G3:A1 Refine the existing organogram and design new organogram

G3:A2 Prepare and organize training and professional development plan for EthERNet

management and staff

G3:A3 Conduct and monitor the training sessions

(G4)

INTERNATIONAL

LINK

PROVISIONING

G4:A1 Conduct a study for international link provisioning (requirements to establish the link,

high-level design, wavelength assignment)

G4:A2 Implement and Establish International Gateway for EthERNet (register as ISP Operator)

Sub-Strategy 4.2 - Activities

The following table presents the modernization of the campus networks.

Table 41: Modernization of Campus Networks and HR

Goals Goal No. Identified Activities

(G1) MODERNIZE

CAMPUS NETWORK

G1:A1 Set Campus IT Requirements Standard for Each Category of Campuses and

issues including minimum bandwidth, access, and privacy for TVETs and

newly introduced HEIs.

G1:A2 Review existing campus networks and establish IT service requirements

(enterprise and learning) for TVETs and newly introduced HEIs

G1:A3 Generate Campus Network and data center Re-designs and new Designs (one

for Each Category Campus in HEIs and TVETs))

G1:A4 Generate a complete and detailed network and data center equipment

specification. Bid document preparation and enact the standard bidding

process, award, and purchase

G1:A5 Organize the campus network and IT service (ERP and LMS) implementations

Project for HEIs and TVETs (Generate concrete project plan together with

stakeholders)



Goals Goal No. Identified Activities

G1:A6 Execute the implementation of campus networks and data centers for HEIs and

TVETs including evaluations

(G2) BUILDUP

DIGITAL SERVICES

G1:A1 Campus Automation including ERP procurement plan (one for each category

campuses) with requirements.

G2:A2 Plan for LMS hosting (one for each category campuses) with requirements

G2:A3 Setup Campus Identity Service

G2:A4 Plan and implement for providing universal access to each student.

G2:A5 Deploy IT Help Desk for comprehensive digital support

(G3) ENHANCE

CAMPUS IT

CAPACITY

G3:A1 Refine the existing generic organogram and design new generic organogram

for campuses in HEIs and TVETs.

G3:A2 Design nationally uniform Campus IT service code

G3:A3 Identify the details of the training contents and schedule for IT staff

G3:A4 Arrange Training for Campus IT Team.


The timeline is presented in terms of number of weeks. Assuming the tasks are accomplished

linearly, the actual month and year of accomplishing these activities will be based on the approval

date of the strategy implementation.

Table 42: Implementation timeline for EthERNet Enhancement

Goal

No. Identified Activities

Timeline

(2021–2030)

Iterative

every 2 yrs.

Responsible Deliverable

G1:A1 Review in detail the EthERNet data

center and infrastructure, and data centers

of HEI and TVET institutions to expand

the network to connect all public HEIs

and TVETs as well as to include public

Teachers' Training Colleges and private

HEIs and TVETs.

Jan 2021 EthERNet director and

external experienced

experts

EthERNet data center

and infrastructure

review report

G1:A2 Identify the enhanced network and

network related services portfolio.

Jan 2021 EthERNet director and


experts

Ethernet – Network

Service Portfolio

G1:A3 Identify the new and enhanced application

related services (ERP, LMS, digital

library, tools) those will be needed in next

5 years.

Feb 2021 EthERNet director and


experts

EthERNet – Cloud

based application

services portfolio

G1:A4 Identify unified security requirements and

propose security tools for EthERNet data

center and the connecting nodes to HRIs

and TVETs

Mar 2021 EthERNet director and


experts

EthERNet – Cloud

security services and

tools portfolio

G1:A5 Re-design in detail EthERNet data center

and the core networks

Apr 2021 EthERNet director and


experts

Re-designed Ethernet

Data center and core

networks



Goal

No. Identified Activities

Timeline

(2021–2030)

Iterative

every 2 yrs.


G1:A6 Prepare complete specification, bid

document, and enact the standard bidding

process, award, and purchase

May - Jul

2021

EthERNet director and


experts

Spec document

Bid document

Evaluation document

Contract agreement

G1:A7 Organize the EthERNet Enhancement

Project (Generate concrete project plan

together with stakeholders)

Aug 2021 EthERNet director and


experts and the vendor

awarded

Project management

plan

G2:A1 Fiberize the network (Connecting new

institutions to EthERNet and upgrade

existing ones)

Sep – 2021-

Feb 2022

Ethernet experts

Ethio telecom experts

Vendor experts

Fiber network

G2:A2 Upgrade core network equipment

Mar 2022 Ethernet experts

Vendor experts

Core network installed

and configured

G2:A3

Add additional rings, spars, and POPs

Apr – May

2022

Ethernet experts

Ethio telecom experts

Vendor experts

Ring network

G2:A4 Enhance the security and reliability of the

network

Jun 2022 Ethernet experts

Vendor experts

Security enhanced

network

G3:A1 Refine the existing organogram and

design new organogram

Jan 2021

Parallel task



experts

Organogram

G3:A2 Prepare and organize training and

professional development plan for

EthERNet management and staff

Jul 2022 EthERNet director and


experts

Training schedule

G3:A3 Conduct and monitor the training sessions

Aug - Nov

2022

Ethernet experts Experts with enhanced

knowledge

G4:A1 Conduct a study for international link

provisioning (requirements to establish

the link, high-level design, wavelength

assignment)

Sep - Nov

2021

Parallel task



experts and international

experts

international link

provisioning document

G4:A2 Implement and Establish International

Gateway for EthERNet (register as ISP

Operator)

Dec 2021 –

Feb 2022



experts and international

experts

Implemented

international link



Table 43: Implementation timeline for Campus Network Modernization

Goals

Identified Activities

Timeline

(2021 – 2030)

Iterative every

2 years


G1:A1 Set Campus IT Requirements Standard

for Each Category of Campuses and

issues including minimum bandwidth,

access, and privacy for TVETs and newly

introduced HEIs.

Sep 2021 University/TVET ICT director &

Network engineers

Ethernet experts

IT Requirements

standard

G1:A2 Review existing campus networks and

establish IT service requirements

(enterprise and learning) for TVETs and

newly introduced HEIs

Oct 2021 University/TVET ICT director &

Network engineers

Ethernet experts

IT application

service

requirements

G1:A3 Generate Campus Network and data

center Re-designs and new Designs (one

for Each Category Campus in HEIs and

TVETs))

Nov 2021 –Apr

2022

University/TVET ICT director &

Network engineers

Ethernet experts

Redesigned

network

Designed

network

G1:A4 Generate a complete and detailed

network and data center equipment

specification. Bid document preparation

and enact the standard bidding process,

award, and purchase

May 2022 – Jul

2022


Network engineers

Ethernet experts

Spec document

Bid document

Evaluation

document

Contract

agreement

G1:A5 Organize the campus network and IT

service (ERP and LMS) implementations

Project for HEIs and TVETs (Generate

concrete project plan together with

stakeholders)

Aug 2022 University/TVET ICT director &

Network engineers & Software

experts

Ethernet experts

Project

management plan

G1:A6 Execute the implementation of campus

networks and data centers for HEIs and

TVETs including evaluations

Sep 2022 – Aug

2023



experts

Ethernet experts

Campus data

center and

network

infrastructure

G2:A1 Campus Automation including ERP

procurement plan (one for each category

campuses) with requirements.

Sep 2023 – Sep

2025



experts

Ethernet experts

Implemented

ERP

G2:A2 Plan for LMS hosting (one for each

category campuses) with requirements

Sep 2023 – Sep

2024



experts

Ethernet experts

Implemented

LMS

G2:A3 Setup Campus Identity Service Oct 2023 Software and network engineers Directory service

G2:A4 Plan and implement for providing

universal access to each student.

Nov 2023 Software and network engineers

G2:A5 Deploy IT Help Desk for comprehensive

digital support

Dec 2023 ICT director

G3:A1 Refine the existing generic organogram

and design new generic organogram for

campuses in HEIs and TVETs.

Sep 2021 University/TVET ICT director &


experts

Organogram

G3:A2 Design nationally uniform Campus IT

service code

Jan 2024 University/TVET ICT director &


experts

IT service code



Goals

Identified Activities

Timeline

(2021 – 2030)

Iterative every

2 years


G3:A3 Identify the details of the training

contents and schedule for IT staff

Sep 2021 – Aug

2022



experts

Training

schedule

G3:A4 Arrange/conduct Training for Campus IT

Team.

Sep 2022 – Aug

2023



experts

Trained IT team


Table 44:Indicators & Goals for EthERNet



(Min)

Crucial

2025

Aspiration

2030

INCREASE

REACH


connected HEIs 52/88 (37%) 57% 80% 100%


connected TVETs 0% 14% 50% 75%


connected students small 40% 80% 100%


connected faculty small 50% 80% 100%

STRENGHTEN

THE NETWORK

5 Total bandwidth

subscription (Gbps) ~20Gbps 60 Gbps 100 Gbps 120Gbps

6 Core Network Speed 10Gbps 50 Gbps 20 Gbps 40 Gbps

7 Network's Country Geo

Coverage 4841Km fiber 8,000 Km 20,000Km 40,000Km

HR CAPACITY 9 Training of staff (hours) ~10

hours/year

80

hours/year

100

hours/year

100

hours/year

INTEARNATIONAL

LINK

PROVISIONING

10

EthERNet becomes

educational ISP by

2021/2022 0 50Gbps 100Gbps 120Gbps

Note that connecting HEIs will be in order from Research oriented and Large Universities to

Medium and Small ones. As for TVETs, the order of priority will be from Federal TVETs to Level

V, IV, III, II and I. Furthermore, both upgrade and new fiber connections will be done parallel.

Table 45: Indicators & Goals for CaNDiS



(Min) Crucial 2025

Aspiration

2030

CAPABLE

CAMPUS

NETWORK

1 Number of campuses fiber

upgraded. 7% 30% 50% 80%

2 Number of buildings with

Gbps/connectivity ~7% 30% 50% 80%





(Min) Crucial 2025

Aspiration

2030

3 % of academic areas Wi-Fi

covered ~30 60% 90% 100%

4 Bandwidth per pupil (mbps/p) 0.2 mbps/p .5 mbps/p 1 mbps/p

LAUNCH

DIGITAL

SERVICES

5 Courses on LMS 0 25% 50% 100%

6 Students with universal LMS

access 0 70% 90% 100%

7 Students with Campus

Identity ~5% 30% 80% 100%

8 Campuses on ERP 0 % 50% 75%

ENHANCE

CAPACITY

9 Training of EthERNet + IT

staff (hours) ~10 hours/year

40

hours/year 80 hours/year

100

hours/year

10 Campus IT Team (FTE /1000

students) 0.5 2 3 4


Using the WB EXCEL an attempt was done to compute the cost. The estimated budget required

to successfully implement this strategy is shown in the following tables (in thousands of Ethiopian

Birr) as capital and recurrent costs respectively for the coming 10 years.

Capital Cost for Sub Strategy 4.1 Strengthening/Establishing EthERNet (in thousands of Birr)

Cost Headings 2021 - Year 1

2022 - Year 2

2023 - Year 3

2024 - Year 4

2025 - Year 5

2026 - Year 6

2027 - Year 7

2028 - Year 8

2029 - Year 9

2030 - Year 10

Total - 10 Years (Birr)

ICT Infrastructure 184,232 300,000 0.00 0.00 640,232 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1,124,460

Professional Development

80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 800,000

Total Cost 264,232 380,000 80,000 80,000 720,232 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 1,924,464

Operational cost for Sub strategy 4.1 Strengthening/Establishing EthERNet (in thousands of Birr)

Cost Headings 2021 -

Year 1

2022 -

Year 2

2023 -

Year 3

2024 -

Year 4

2025 -

Year 5

2026 -

Year 6

2027 -

Year 7

2028 -

Year 8

2029 -

Year 9

2030 -

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 0.00 0.00 2,572,640.

00 0.00 0.00

2,572,640.

00 0.00 0.00 0.00

2,572,640.

00

7,717,92

0.00

Monitoring, Evaluation

and Learning 1,000.00 1,000.00 2,400.00 0.00 5,600.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

10,000.0

0

Total Cost 1,000.00 1,000.00 2,575,040.

00 0.00 5,600.00

2,572,640.

00 0.00 0.00 0.00

2,572,640.

00

7,727,92

0.00


Description 2021 – Year 1

2022 – Year 2

2023 – Year 3

2024 – Year 4

2025 – Year 5

2026 – Year 6

2027 – Year 7

2028 – Year 8

2029 – Year 9

2030 – Year 10

Total – 10 Years

Total budget 265,232 381,000 2,655,040 80,000 725,832 2,652,640 80,000 80,000 80,000 2,652,640 9,652,384

Capital Cost for Sub strategy 4.2 Modernization of Campus Networks and IT preparedness at the campus level (in thousands

of Birr)

Cost Headings 2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

ICT Infrastructure 0.00 90,960 2,991,632 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 3,082,592

Learning platforms and DLR 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 8,176,000 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 8,176,000

Professional Development 960,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 16,800,000

Total Cost 960,000 1,850,960 4,751,632 1,760,000 9,936,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 28,058,592



Total cost for Sub strategy 4.2 Modernization of Campus Networks and IT preparedness at the campus level (in thousands of

Birr)

Description 2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

Total budget 1,945,600 2,906,960 18,064,512 2,752,000 10,992,000 15,072,880 2,816,000 2,816,000 2,816,000 15,072,880 75,254,832

Total capital cost for Strategy 4: Connect higher education and TVET institutions to affordable high-speed broadband (in

thousands of Birr)

Sub Strategies 2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

4.1 Strengthening/

Establishing NRENs 264,232 380,000 80,000 80,000 720,232 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 80,000 1,924,464

4.2 Modernization of Campus

Networks and IT

preparedness at the campus

level

960,000 1,850,960 4,751,632 1,760,000 9,936,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 1,760,000 28,058,592

Total Cost 1,224,232 2,230,960 4,831,632 1,840,000 10,656,232 1,840,000 1,840,000 1,840,000 1,840,000 1,840,000 29,983,056

Total Operational cost for Strategy 4: Connect higher education and TVET institutions to affordable high-speed broadband

(in thousands of Birr)

Sub Strategies 2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

4.1Strengthening/Establishing

NRENs 1,000 1,000 2,575,040 5,600 2,572,640 2,572,640 7,727,920


Networks and IT


level

985,600 1,056,000 13,312,880 992,000 1,056,000 13,312,880 1,056,000 1,056,000 1,056,000 13,312,880 47,196,240

Total Cost 986,600 1,057,000 15,887,920 992,000 1,061,600 15,885,520 1,056,000 1,056,000 1,056,000 15,885,520 54,924,160



Total cost for Strategy 4: Connect higher education and TVET institutions to affordable high-speed broadband (in thousands

of Birr)

Sub-strategies - DSCAP 2021 –

Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

4.1 Strengthening/Establishing

NRENs 265,232 381,000 2,655,040 80,000 725,832 2,652,640 80,000 80,000 80,000 2,652,640 9,652,384


Networks and IT


level

1,945,600 2,906,960 18,064,512 2,752,000 10,992,000 15,072,880 2,816,000 2,816,000 2,816,000 15,072,880 75,254,832

Total for Strategy 4 2,210,832 3,287,960 20,719,552 2,832,000 11,717,832 17,725,520 2,896,000 2,896,000 2,896,000 17,725,520 84,907,216

4.5. Strategy 5 – Capacity Building and Process Reengineering

Capacity Requirement is about the human capability and resources involved in the design,

implementation, monitoring, and review of the higher education strategic plan on digital skills.

Humans in organization are vital for the success of organizational goals. Their contribution mainly

depends on their capacity and motivation to execute their responsibilities in the organization. Thus,

in support of the higher education strategic plan on digital skills (DSCAP), we need to ensure that

our Ministry and Regulatory Staff have the requisite capacity (skills and knowledge) to support

the initiatives. We also need our organizations to be both efficient and effective in supporting the

plan.

The plan focuses in building the capacity of two groups of people – Digital Leaders and Digital

Specialists. Digital leadership is the strategic use of an organization’s digital assets to achieve

organizational goals. This can be dealt with both organizationally and at an individual level.

Looking at it from an individual level, this is often carried out by those responsible for overseeing

the digital assets. effective digital leaders are aware of their business goal and known as how their

job responsibilities support it. Digital leaders explore how technology can be used to help their

business become much more responsive to the needs of their customers and the ever-changing

requirements. A successful digital leader understands the importance of inbound data and the

processes within the organization that supports it. They place high value on their communication,

creativity, and willingness to explore the ways that new emerging technology and digital

information can be used to help organizational success. In today’s world, digital leadership is an

obvious balancing act which requires a very unique set of skills to drive success for that leader,

organization, and overall workforce. Thus, leadership is an extremely important function of any

management, helping to maximize efficiency to achieve business goal.

Digital specialists are technical experts over specific domains. Digital specialists provide

leadership over specific domains in the digital plan based on their deep knowledge and experience

in the area. For example, in the strategy of capacity building, the technical experts would include

senior technologists who are able to identify the skills gaps of the team such as the need to develop

capacity in interpreting and using analytics from learning management systems, to inform policy

design and programme evaluation. They are the engine that power the digital transformation efforts

of the country. As such, investments in building the capacity of digital specialists will ensure the

sustaining and scaling up of the digital plan over time. Examples of domains for digital specialists

include:

• Digital Security – this relates to the maintenance of the confidentiality, integrity, and

protection of data as well as the systems across various environments.

• Enterprise Mobility Management – this relates to the use and access of mobile devices as

well as corporate apps and intranet services, at any place and at any time.



• Cloud Computing – this relates to the exploitation of cloud services for the storage,

retrieval, and processing of data and for the access to computing power from data centers

over the Internet

• Digital Applications – this relates to knowledge and skills in the operations of the specific

platforms, such as learning management systems, developed, and used in the organization.

• Big Data Analytics – this relates to the harnessing of big data collected from various

platforms such as learning management systems. Based on trends and patterns, projections

can be identified for planning.

Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) involves a review and refinement of existing work

processes so as to be more efficient and effective in delivering the business output and outcomes.

BPR is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic

improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service,

and speed. BPR focuses on processes where it works to redesign the strategic and value-added

process which transcends the organizational boundaries. It is a cross functional approach and

requires support from almost all the departments of the organization. Managerial support is prime

for the approach to be a success, which also involves a tactful and well-planned culture change

management program. It involves identifying the processes first and then doing a through and in-

depth As-In analysis. Once it is done, the processes can be identified for updating or review. Then

a To-Be analysis is done and designed so that the organization knows where is has to go and what

it has to achieve. Once the plan is in place, the reengineering process is implemented, and

continuous improvement is aimed at. Furthermore, changes to policies in the areas of capacity

building, working relationship between different administrative units, career structure, and other

related issues are addressed in strategy 1.

While there is recognition on the potential of ICTs as a tool for the promotion of gender equality

and support of people with special needs, still there is lower number of women accessing as well

as using ICT as compared with men and limited provision of assistive technologies for the needy.

Unless the gender divide and special needs issues are specifically addressed, there is a risk that

ICTs may aggravate existing inequalities. If, however, the gender and special needs dimensions of

ICT - in terms of access and use as well as capacity-building opportunities - are explicitly identified

and addressed, ICT can be a powerful catalyst. Hence, priority shall be given by the Higher

Education Institutions and TVETs to empower women and people with disability through ICTs.

Sub-strategies

Sub-strategy 5.1: Capacity Building for Ministry Staffs

Sub-strategy 5.1 deals with:

• Building Capacity Needs for Digital Plan

• Identifying Modalities for Capacity Building



Sub-strategy 5.2: Business Process Reengineering

Business Processes are typically organized in the following categories:

• Operational Processes

• Management Processes

• Support Processes


A survey was sent out to ICT Directors of fifteen public universities in different parts of the

country and to the Director General of Ethiopian Education and Research Network (EthERNet)

in June 2020.

The purpose of the survey was to identify: (1) training needs for digital leaders and digital

specialists; and (2) weaknesses or challenges in relation to capacity building and business

processes in the ministry/agencies and HEIs. The outcomes from the surveys informed the

strategic objectives for capacity building and business process re-engineering for the coming

years. Appendix 5.2 and Appendix 5.3 provides a sample of the questions and responses from

the participants of the survey.

Based on desk review, two digital skill frameworks, the Digital Skills Framework for Digital

Leaders and Digital Skills Framework for Digital Specialists in HE and TVET institutions in

Ethiopia are developed for two key groups of people – the driver and engine of the digital

transformation efforts in the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MoSHE) of Ethiopia

and Ethiopian HE and TVET institutes.

The data collection and needs analysis from the survey and international scan of best practices

inform the development of the following objectives and plans for capacity building and business

process re-engineering sub-strategies.

• Current state

o Leaders with some digital leadership skills are estimated about 1%. These

leaders are mainly the ones who are leading the ICT offices in the ministry,

agencies, College of Teachers Education, and TVETs.

• desired state by 2025, and 2030

o 42,520 staffs (digital leaders, digital specialists, and support staffs) trained in

2025. On average, two short-term trainings are planned for a staff.

Accordingly, a staff may take couple of trainings at different times. The 100%

(42,520) trainings will be completed in 2025 and the remaining 5 years of the

plan period will be used for new staff and refreshment courses.

• The difference/progress that will be made with the plan

o Trained at Intermediate digital skills level (75%) =31,890



o Trained at Advanced digital skills level (10%) = 4,252

o Trained at Highly specialized digital skills level (5%) = 2,126

o Trained at Digital leadership (Management) level (10%) = 4,252

• Why and how the goal is realistic to the level of ambition

o Computation considers the organizational structure, job positions, and

description; the staff mobility; only one training is assumed for one employee

per year; the trainings will be both face-to-face in-house and outsourced, online

to be taken/audited by the trainees; financial resource can be pulled from

domestic and foreign sources to implement those trainings.

Challenges Identified in Capacity Building

Based on the feedback from the respondents of the survey as well as input from working group

members, the following challenges have been identified.

Capacity Building related Challenges:

• Inadequate e-readiness in universities/TVETs

• Use of online meeting tools and Learning Management Systems are not uniform among

HE/TVET institutes as well as EthERNet

• Lack of sufficient, motivated, committed human capacity in EthERNet and HE/TVET

institutes:

o Most senior managers are not aware of the strategic impact of ICT

o Technical capacity at Ministry/Agencies/HE/TVETs is limited

o Turnover of technical ICT staff is very high

o Managerial, technical, and administrative capacity in EthERNet is limited

o Limited ICT funding. There is limited funding for EthERNet investments and

operations. Most universities/TVETs have small ICT budgets

• Low level of digital skills among employees and leaders at ministry/agencies

Challenges and Issues in Business Process

Management processes (see Appendix 5.2)

• Duties and responsibilities of Ethiopian Education and Research Network (EthERNet)

and ICT offices in HE/TVET institutes needs revisiting.

• Lack of clarity in the governance structure of EthERNet (Ownership, membership, board,

standard working procedures, etc.)

• The relationship between EthERNet and HE/TVET institutes is not clearly defined (there

is lack of coordination). These institutes do not recognize the value of EthERNet.

• Most institutions lack a formal policy and organizational structure for ICT (Lack of

institutional ICT policy and framework)



• Lack of interconnectedness among policies

• The reporting relationship of ICT offices in HE/TVETs/Agencies is not uniform. The

ICT office reports to different entities in in different HE/Agencies/TVET institutes

• EthERNet/Agencies/HE/TVET institutes primarily depend on government budget. There

is lack of sustainable business model.

• Need of a governing body/board for EthERNet

• Need of an ICT Council to advise the university presidents and executive committee to

advise the ICT director in HE/TVETs

Operational processes

• EthERNet has to be the core service center for educational and research institutions in the

country. To do so, EthERNet’s standard working procedures/processes need to be

revisited

• Need for additional departments/processes at EthERNet

• Need for additional departments/processes at HE/TVET ICT offices

o Security department (Security Emergency response team, NOC support team)

o Training and consultancy department

o Administration department (for the day-to-day administration of human and

material resources (especially for bigger ICT offices)

o Technology innovation center

o IT audit unit

Support processes

• Procurement process for ICT equipment and services needs revisit (there is delay in

procurement process)


High-Level Goals of the Strategy to be achieved (2025 and 2030)

High-Level Goal by 2025 and 2030

The goal for Capacity Building (Sub-Strategy 5.1) is to train 42,520 staff in total during the 10

years plan period in four level of digital skills trainings. This is computed in such a way that

four leaders are considered from each of the 674 TVETs, 9 leaders from each of the 50 HEIs, 4

leaders from each of the 38 College of Teachers Education, 650 staff from Ministry

headquarters, and 300 from the agencies under the ministry. This accounts for 4,252 staff and

it is assumed that on average two relevant digital skills trainings will be given to a staff every

year for the first five years of the 10 years plan period mainly because the capacity building



shall be a prerequisite to the implementation of other strategies. The number share to the four

levels is estimated in percentage of employees based on their responsibility in the ministry,

agencies, HEIs, College of Teachers Educations, and TVETs. Accordingly:

• 31,890 (i.e., 75% of the total 42,520) of staff to receive Digital Skills training to have

intermediate-level digital skills by 2030


advanced-level digital skills by 2030


highly specialized-level digital skills by 2030


Digital leadership (Management)-level digital skills by 2030.

4.5.3. Activities

Sub-strategy 5.1 Activities

The technical and managerial human capacity situation in the EthERNet is inadequate. Similarly,

the ICT managerial and technical capacities in the agencies/universities/TVETs are far from

adequate. More importantly, both EthERNet and universities/TVETs do not have mechanisms to

attract and retain quality professional staff. Thus, EthERNet has to address such issues and

advocate their implementation in HE/TVET institutes.

The list of activities for this sub-strategy are:

a) Enhance digital skills leadership and management capacity at Ministry, HE and TVET

institutes

• Commission a coordinating committee to oversee the digital leadership training for

Ministries, HE and TVET institutes

• Develop a structured capacity building and training programme for digital leaders

• Develop resource mobilization capacity of staff

• Use consultants from stakeholders in short-term partnership basis

b) Improve capacity for digital skills related project planning, design, and management

• Update project management and administrative systems

• Provide refresher courses for project staff

• Ensuring that all procurement, technical installation contracts and administrative

systems are supported to deliver on their intended promise

c) Develop capacity of digital leaders about digital skills related policy design, development,

implementation, and evaluation

• Constitute a Task Force to develop policy guidelines

• Train members of the policy taskforce on key stages involved in developing policies

(Need identification, Policy Design, Implementation and Evaluation)



• Identify policy challenges confronting Digital skills development in

ministry/HE/TVET institutes

• Institute policy to ensure senior appointment holders attend digital leadership training

within 6 months of emplacement

d) Develop managerial capacity of digital specialists at Ministry, HE and TVET institutes

• Commission a coordinating committee to oversee the digital specialist training for

Ministries, HE and TVET institutes

• Develop a structured capacity building and training programme for digital specialists

• Mentor technical staff of HE/TVET/Agencies through and internship program

e) Recruit, develop and retain adequate and quality management and technical personnel in

EthERNet and HE/TVET/Agencies

• Constitute a taskforce to surface issues and challenges in recruitment and retention of

staff

• Recruit adequate number of staff for EthERNet and HE/TVET institutes

• Establish a staff development programme to be centrally coordinated

• Establish a strong and structured internship programme

• Develop best practice/ guidelines for ICT management and operations

Contribution of Capacity Building to the Goal: Major attention must be given to the development

of human resources and capacity at ministry level, HE and TVET institutes. Human resources

programmes, especially education, training, and development programmes must be consistent with

the current HE and TVET landscape. Well planned human resources development strategies create

a pool of experts that are key for improved service delivery and effective execution of

organizational responsibility. The ultimate aim of strategic capacity building initiative is to

secure/avail a workforce that has the skills and knowledge to undertake the tasks required, and that

is eager to learn new skills in order to be able to meet future challenges. The capacity building

Focus Areas are presented in the table below.

Table 46: Capacity building Focus Areas

Capacity Building Focus Area /

Activity

Responsible Indicators Timeline

Develop capacity of digital leaders EthERNet, HE, TVETs 2,126 digital leaders

trained

2021-2025

Develop capacity of digital Specialists EthERNet, HE, TVETs 40,394 digital specialists

trained

2021-2025

Modalities for Capacity Building: The following table presents potential modalities that can

be adopted for the capacity building initiatives:



Table 47: Modalities for Capacity Building

Activity Responsible Indicators Timeline

Outsourcing (consultants and

contractors)

EthERNet, HE, TVET 100 local and

international

consultants engaged

2021-2025

In-house capacity development

(strategic hiring, systematic process of

talent identification, development of

present staff)

EthERNet, HE 4,252 in-house

capacity dev.

Initiatives

2021-2025

Short-term on the job trainings EthERNet, HE, TVET 31,890 staff trained 2021-2025

Massively Open Online Courses

(MOOCs)

EthERNet, HE, TVET 4,252 of staff trained 2021-2025

Overseas Visits and Attachment EthERNet, HE, TVET 2,126 of visits secured 2021-2025

Mentoring and Developmental

Assignments

EthERNet 2,126 of staff

developed

2021-2025

Table 48: Digital Skills Framework for Digital Leaders in Ethiopian HEIs and TVETs

Competency

area

Leadership level Proficiency

level

Domains

of

knowledge

- Competency area

Digital

Leadership

(Management)

High-level

Managers

(Directors, Director

generals and above)

Fo

un

da

tio

na

l D

igit

al

skil

ls f

or

lea

der

s a

t a

ll l

evel

s

(Dev

ices

an

d s

oft

wa

re o

per

ati

on

, in

form

ati

on a

nd

da

ta l

iter

acy

,

com

mu

nic

ati

on

an

d c

oll

abo

rati

on

, d

igit

al

con

ten

t cr

eati

on,

safe

ty,

pro

ble

m s

olv

ing

, ca

reer

–re

late

d c

om

pet

ence

s)

Dig

ital

Lea

der

(D

L)

Lev

el 4

& 5

- IS and business Strategy

alignment

- Business plan development

- Architecture Design

- Technology Trend Monitoring

- Innovating

- Information Security Strategy

Development

- Needs identification

- Project and portfolio

Management

- Relationship Management

- Process improvement

- Purchasing

- Information and knowledge

management

- Business Change management

- ICT quality strategy

development

- IS Governance



Competency

area

Leadership level Proficiency

level

Domains

of

knowledge

- Competency area

Middle-level

Managers

(Department heads)

Dig

ital

Lea

der

(D

L)

Lev

el 2

& 3

- User support

- Change support

- Service delivery

- Problem management

- Application Development

- Systems Engineering

- ICT quality management

- Purchasing

- Risk Management

- Information Security

Management

- Education and training

provision

- Contract management

- Personnel development

Low-level

Managers (Unit

leaders, team

leaders)

Dig

ital

Lea

der

(DL

) L

evel

1

See appendix 5.1 for e-Competence: Title and generic description

Table 49: Digital Skills Framework for Digital Specialists in Ethiopian HEIs and TVETs

Competency

area Digital specialist level Proficiency level Domains of knowledge

Highly

Specialized

Lead professionals /

Senior Managers /

Principal

Digital Specialist

(DSp) Level 4 & 5 • Systems Engineering

• Application

Development

• Component

integration

• Architecture Design

• Needs identification

• Testing

• Solution Deployment

• Documentation

production

• Information security

management

Advanced Senior professionals /

Managers

Digital Specialist

(DSp) Level 2 & 3

Intermediate Associates/junior

professionals

Digital Specialist

(DSp) Level 1

Sub-Strategy 5.2 Activities



Every organization needs to have a strategy of how it operates in the ever-changing environment

so as to ensure it survives in the same environment. Thus, it is important to use business process

re-engineering as a tool to implement its strategy.

Business processes can be classified into 3 categories. They are Management Processes.

Operational Processes, and Support Processes. Management processes relate to the supervisory

function of the management and could include processes for the planning & deployment,

budgetary supervision, and the monitoring and evaluation of programme/ Operational processes

are central to the execution of the tasks of the organization. Examples of specific operational

processes could include the deployment of certain goods and services to the stakeholders. Support

processes enable the smooth implementation of operational processes. Examples of support

processes include corporate services, such as finance, human resource, administrative and

technical support.

EthERNet’s governance and management structures need to be improved to enhance its credibility

and image. Thus, establishing legal framework and management structure are key concerns.

Although the technical capacity of digital specialists is vital (as dealt in the capacity building plan

of strategy 4), the managerial capacity of digital specialists is also equally important and thus

addressed under strategy 5. Besides, EthERNet needs to be financially sustainable to achieve its

objectives and objectives of HE/TVET institutes. Funding has been a major issue since the

formation of EthERNet, but EthERNet has been fortunate to have valuable partners who have

made a tremendous input into its funding. As this source of funding might not always prevail,

EthERNet needs to plan for funding that ensures that it meets its objectives in a sustainable manner.

The list of activities for this sub-strategy are

a) Enhance management processes and administrative systems (i.e., Have effective

mechanisms for accountability of the stakeholders)

• Develop EthERNet governing board and establish its legal framework

• Review all EthERNet legal documents and standard working procedures

• Reform EthERNet’s governance structure to accommodate evolving education needs

• Develop a comprehensive EthERNet management structure with its appropriate

functions

• Develop appropriate job descriptions

• Constantly reviewing the management, procurement, and administrative systems to

be responsive to organizational needs

• Introduce a business development unit/function at EthERNet and in ICT offices of

HE/TVET institutes

b) Streamline operation processes and improve efficiency

• Establish a committee to oversee the coordination of increased productivity efforts

and review operation processes



• Review the performance management system to ensure that the compensation and

reward systems to productivity and value-add of the staff to the organization is

aligned.

• Develop recognition and award schemes to reward good performance and encourage

innovations

• Institute a mechanism to deal with bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, and abuse of

power

• Set up channels to obtain regular feedback from stakeholders

c) Improve Support Process of Procurement

• Review procurement regulations to ensure that the procurement process and decision

to purchase is fair, open, and good value for money.

• Consider a faster and less stringent process for small value purchases by empowering

middle managers with greater authority.

• Set up periodic contracts with vendors to facilitate ease of procurement for

subsequent purchases.

d) Improve Support Process of Communication among stakeholders for effective

implementation of digital skills programme

• Train Ministry/Agency/HE/TVET admin staff in effective communication through

external and internal channels

• Set up a Communications and Engagement Unit for EthERNet

• Develop a communication strategy taking stakeholders into consideration

e) Secure reliable budget that can support the digital skills programme

• Establish and implement feasible business plans

• Increase the number of fund sources

• Review the existing business models elsewhere and adopt the most appropriate

business model

• Update and implement the new model

• Encourage government support

• Establish a research endowment fund

• Engage in for-profit activities as part of internally generated funds

• Advise Agencies/HE/TVET on adequate levels of spending on ICT

• Lobby for tax exemption from Ethiopian Revenue Authority

Table 50: Relation of capacity building and BPR efforts in this strategy to capacity needs from other

strategies

Capacity building and BPR efforts in

Strategy 5

Capacity needs from the other

strategies

Priority

Strategy 5.1_Capacity Building

Sub-objective 1.1: Enhance digital skills

leadership and management capacity at Ministry,

TVETs and HEIs

• Strategy 2: Reform of Digital Skills

Programs

High



• Strategy 3: Enhance Use of

Technology in Teaching and

Learning

Sub-objective 1.2: Improve capacity for digital

skills related project planning, design, and

management

• Strategy 4: Connect higher

education and TVET institutions to

affordable high-speed broadband

and Improving Campus Network

Digital Services

High

Sub-objective 1.3: Develop capacity of digital

leaders about digital skills related policy design,

development, implementation, and evaluation

• Strategy 1: Establishing Enabling

Policies, Digital Skills Framework,

and Digital Skills Assessment

Medium

Objective 2: Develop managerial capacity of

digital specialists at Ministry, HE, and TVET

institutes

• Strategy 4: Connect higher

education and TVET institutions to

affordable high-speed broadband

and Improving Campus Network

Digital Services

Medium

Objective 3: Recruit, develop and retain adequate

and quality management and technical personnel

in EthERNet and HE/TVETs/Agencies

• Strategy 1 - 4

High

Strategy 5.2_Process Reengineering

Objective 1: Enhance management processes

and administrative systems (i.e., Have effective

mechanisms for accountability of the

stakeholders)

• Strategy 1 - 4 High

Objective 2: Streamline operation processes and

improve efficiency • Strategy 2,3,4 Medium

Objective 3: Improve Support Process of

Procurement • Strategy 2,3,4 Low

Objective 4: Improve Support Process of

Communication among stakeholders for effective

implementation of digital skills programme

• Strategy 1 - 4 Low

Objective 5: Secure reliable budget that can

support the digital skills programme • Strategy 1 - 4 High


For smooth implementation and follow-up, the five-year DSCAP strategic plan (2021-2025) has

be broken down into Annual Operational Plans with well-defined activities, outputs, performance

indicators and budgets under each strategic goal. An annual internal evaluation and performance

needs to be conducted to track progress. Besides, specific performance indicators and reporting

requirements also need to be agreed with all the key stakeholders at the initiation of projects. The

following table shows key milestones up to 2025, year by year.



Table 51: Key milestones up to 2025, year-by-year

Milestones Timeline Deliverables Mapping to

objectives

Responsible

Develop EthERNet governing

board and establish its legal

framework

April 2021 EthERNet

governing board

and its legal

framework

Developed

Strategy 5.2

objective 1

Director General of

EthERNet

Review all EthERNet legal

documents and standard working

procedures

April 2021 EthERNet

documents and

procedures

reviewed

Strategy 5.2

objective 1

EthERNet HR Director,

Director-General of

EthERNet

Reform EthERNet’s governance

structure to accommodate

evolving education needs

April 2021 EthERNet’s

governance

structure reformed

Strategy 5.2

objective 1


Director-General of

EthERNet

Develop a comprehensive

EthERNet management structure

with its appropriate functions

April 2021 EthERNet

management

structure

developed

Strategy 5.2

objective 1


Director-General of

EthERNet

Develop appropriate job

descriptions

April 2021 Job descriptions

defined

Strategy 5.2

objective 1


Director-General of

EthERNet

Introduce a business

development unit/function at

EthERNet and in ICT offices of

HE/TVETs

December

2021

business

development unit

established

Strategy 5.2

objective 1

Director-General of

EthERNet

Train Ministry / Agency / HE /

TVETs admin staff in effective

communication

2021-2025 2,126 staff trained Strategy 5.2

objective 4

Director-General of

Communications

Develop a communication

strategy taking stakeholders into

consideration

December

2021

A communication

strategy developed

Strategy 5.2

objective 4

Director-General of

Communications

Establish and implement feasible

business plans

December

2021

Business plan

developed

Strategy 5.2

objective 5

Director-General of

EthERNet

Increase the number of fund

sources

2021-2023 Five fund sources

secured

Strategy 5.2

objective 5

Director-General of

EthERNet, HEs, CTEs,

TVETs

Review the existing business

models elsewhere and adopt the

most appropriate business model

August

2021

Business models

benchmarked

Strategy 5.2

objective 5

Director-General of


TVETs




objectives

Responsible

Update and implement the new

model

October

2021

New model

implemented

Strategy 5.2

objective 5

Director-General of


TVETs

Establish a research endowment

fund

April 2022 Research fund

established

Strategy 5.2

objective 5

Director-General of

EthERNet

Engage in for-profit activities as

part of internally generated funds

August

2022

Internal funds

generated

Strategy 5.2

objective 5

Director-General of


TVETs

Advise agencies / universities /

agencies on adequate levels of

spending on ICT

2021-2025 1,000 stakeholders

advised

Strategy 5.2

objective 5

Director-General of

EthERNet; Director-

General of Budget;

Director-General of

Procurement

Lobby for tax exemption from

Ethiopian Revenue Authority

September

2021

Tax exemption

negotiated

Strategy 5.2

objective 5

Director-General of

Procurement, Director-

General of EthERNet

Consider a faster and less

stringent process for small value

purchases by empowering middle

managers with greater authority.

September

2021

15 processes re-

engineered

Strategy 5.2

objective 3

Director-General of

Procurement

Develop a structured capacity

building and training programme

for digital leaders

June 2021 A capacity

building and

training

programme

developed

Strategy 5.1

objective 1

Director-General of

HR, Director-General

of EthERNet

Develop resource mobilization

capacity of staff


objective 1

Director-General of

EthERNet

Use consultants from

stakeholders in short-term

partnership basis

2022-2025 100 consultants

engaged

Strategy 5.1

objective 1

Director-General of


TVETs

Provide refresher courses for

project staff


objective 1

Director-General of


TVETs

Constitute a Task Force to

develop policy guidelines

July 2021 Task force

established

Strategy 5.1

objective 1

Director-General of


TVETs

Train members of the policy

taskforce on key stages involved

in developing policies (Need

identification, Policy Design,

Implementation and Evaluation)

2021-2025 100 policy

taskforce members

trained

Strategy 5.1

objective 1

Director-General of


of EthERNet




objectives

Responsible

Identify policy challenges

confronting Digital skills

development in

Ministry/HE/TVETs

March

2021

5 policies changed Strategy 5.1

objective 1

Director-General of


of EthERNet

Develop a structured capacity

building and training programme

for digital specialists

June 2021 40,394 digital

specialists trained

Strategy 5.1

objective 2

Director-General of


of EthERNet

Mentor technical staff of HE /

TVETs / Agencies through an

internship program

2022-2025 2,126 technical

staff mentored

Strategy 5.1

objective 2

Director-General of

EthERNet

Recruit adequate number of staff

for EthERNet and HE/TVETs

September

2021

5,000 staff

recruited

Strategy 5.1

objective 3

Director-General of


TVETs

Establish a strong and structured

internship programme

2023-2025 internship

programme

established

Strategy 5.1

objective 3

Director-General of


TVETs

Restructure operation processes August

2021

No. of operation

processes

restructured

Strategy 5.2

objective 2

Director-General of


TVETs


The table below presents the major KPIs for capacity building and process reengineering. It also

indicates the timeline for their implementation.

Table 52: Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Strategy indicators Baseline

Timeline in Academic year

2021/

2022

2022/

2023

2023/

2024

2024/

2025

2029/

2030

Develop capacity of

digital leaders

No of digital leaders

trained

Very few 25% 50% 75% 100% 100%

Develop capacity of

digital Specialists

No of digital specialists

trained

Very few 25% 50% 75% 100% 100%

Reengineer

Business Processes

No of processes

reengineered

None 90% 100% 100% 100% 100%


Specific to the capacity building and business process re-engineering issues, the key cost drivers

are training costs, incentives costs, and administrative expenses as shown in the following tables

(in thousands of Ethiopian birr).

Total capital cost for Strategy 5: Capacity building and business process re-engineering in Ministries


Sub Strategies Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10

Total –

10 Years

5.1 Capacity building 1,480

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

- 1,480

5.2 Business process re-engineering

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Total Cost 1,480

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

- 1,480

Total Operational cost for Strategy 5: Capacity building and business process re-engineering in Ministries


Sub Strategies 2021 - Year 1

2022 –

Year 2

2023 –

Year 3

2024 –

Year 4

2025 –

Year 5

2026 –

Year 6

2027 –

Year 7

2028 –

Year 8

2029 –

Year 9

2030 –

Year 10

Total –

10 Years

5.1 Capacity

building 200 128,000 128,000 128,400 128,000 134,504 22,400 22,400 22,400 22,400 736,704

5.2 Business process

re-engineering 5,760 11,520 1,920 1,920 1,920 3,840 26,880

Total Cost 5,960 139,520 129,920 130,320 129,920 130,320 22,400 22,400 22,400 22,400 763,584

Total cost for Strategy 5: Capacity building and business process re-engineering in Ministries

Sub-strategies - DSCAP

Total Budget for Strategy 5 in thousands of Birrs

2021 - Year 1 2022 – Year 2

2023 – Year 3

2024 – Year 4

2025 – Year 5

2026 – Year 6

2027 – Year 7

2028 – Year 8

2029 – Year 9

2030 – Year 10

Total – 10 Years

5.1 Capacity building in Ministries and relevant higher education/TVET authorities

1,680 128,000 128,000 128,400 128,000 134,504 8,640 8,640 8,640 8,640 738,184

5.2 Business process re-engineering

5,760 11,520 1,920 1,920 1,920 3,840 26,880

Total for Strategy 5 7,440 139,520 129,920 130,320 129,920 138,320 22,400 22,400 22,400 22,400 765,064

5. Implementation Strategies

The Ministry of Science and Higher Education is the owner of this action plan and its

implementation will be one of its priorities in the coming decade. In addition to using the already

available human and infrastructure resources it has, the ministry directly or indirectly will avail

the necessary additional resources to realize the digital skills country action plan and to attain its

goals. Based on the national strategic plan “Digital Ethiopia 2025”, the federal government of

Ethiopia through the ministry of innovation and technology has committed itself for digitization

and the development of digital skills to accelerate the growth of the country’s economy. The

planned projects to be deployed in the strategy, Digital Ethiopia 2025, cannot be realized without

digitally skilled workforce at different levels. It is therefore the duty of MoSHE to train and avail

skilled graduates at intermediate, advanced and highly specialized levels for its realization. In line

with this and based on its own 10-year high-level strategic plan, the MoSHE will be the

implementer of the digital skills country action plan. For this task, MoSHE will use different

strategies among which the main are presented below.

5.1. Involvement of Development Partners for Technical and Financial

Support

Developing digital skills of students in tertiary education and the integration of ICTs in education

requires putting together a huge sum of budget and a broad level of expertise. The ministry in

collaboration with other partnering ministries in the country, and national and international

development partners will manage the financial and technical capacity requirements for the

achievement of the action plan. Thus, involving development partners in implementing the plan

will be one of the strategies that to be considered.

Accordingly, Ministry of Education, Regional Education Bureaus, public and private HEIs,

TVETs, non-formal and lifelong learning program organizers will be coordinated in order to

proactively work to secure support for the implementation of the plan. This may involve

identifying partners that provide support to specific initiatives, sort-out the areas of their interest,

and approach them by developing relevant programs and projects in line with the digital skills

action plan to secure funds and technical supports. It is however important to maintain national

ownership of the projects even if they are supported by any of the partners. The sustainability and

the scaling up of such project activities at national level will also be considered seriously. Such

linkages and partnerships have to also be extended to civil societies, and NGOs to facilitate the

implementation of the country action plan.

5.2. Involvement of Stakeholders and the Private Sector

The ministry of science and higher education encourages the involvement of the different

stakeholders and the private sector in supporting the realization of the digital skills country action

plan. Among these stakeholders are relevant ministries in the country, industry partners, local



business companies, beneficiaries of self-capacity development organizations, local digital content

creators, infrastructure development institutions, etc. Different government organizations,

industries and private sector may commit themselves to offer support for use in the skill

development process. The ministry will devise methods to exploit the opportunities through these

partnerships. The ministry also will work on ways of availing low-cost computers to needy

students to overcome their financial burden through grants or lone.

5.3. Devise ways of other Financing Sources for the Implementation of

the Plan

The government of Ethiopia will be a major source of financing in the execution of the action plan

and ensuring sustainability. Development partners, private ICT companies, NGOs (bilateral and

multilateral), individual actors in institutions will be encouraged to finance the ICT enabling

environment and the ICT infrastructures. Local governments at regional level and the educational

institutions (public and private) will have to organize themselves to support TVETs in their

regions. Loan systems where students and staff can buy personal computing devices such as

tablets, smart phones or laptops from suppliers will have to be organized. Monitoring mechanism

will be in place to ensure that such loans are paid back. Projects and programs will be a means to

get the support from partners and donors especially for the initial costs of the ICT infrastructure

and capacity development activities.

The private sector will be encouraged to participate in financing some specific areas of common

interest. For example, in producing digital contents, in collaborating in the design of relevant and

job specific digital skill courses, in supporting internships and apprenticeships, in providing

installation services, in maintenance and technical support of ICT infrastructures for HEIs and

TVETs, etc.

5.4. Promoting Gender Equality and Supporting Disabilities

While there is a strong consensus on the potential of ICTs as a tool for the promotion of gender

equality, still there is lower number of women accessing as well as using ICT as compared to men.

As a strategy, the ministry of science and higher education gives special attention to female

students and works for gender equality. There are different initiatives to support and encourage

female students in HEIs and TVETs such as the efforts of increasing the female students’

enrollment rate. In the undergraduate programs of public HEIs, the rate of female enrollment has

increased from 26% in 2010/11 to 36% in 2018/19. Much higher female enrollment rate is achieved

in the private higher learning institutions. While the implementation of the digital skills action plan

is meant to all students in HEIs and TVETs, special consideration will be given to encourage

female students. This includes giving priorities to female students, for example in respecting their

choices, in the placements to IT related fields.



ICTs offers special opportunities to support people with disabilities and are critically important to

support students with disabilities and special needs. The requirements and the support of students

with special needs, will be specifically addressed and should avoid the risks that ICTs may

aggravate existing inequalities. As a strategic goal, the ministry will exploit ICTs for addressing

issues in disabilities and special needs in terms of access and use as well as capacity-building

opportunities as a powerful catalyst in all HEIs and TVETs.

ANNEX

Annex I:List of Abbreviations

AAGR: Annual Average Growth Rate

AASTU: Addis Ababa Science and Technology University

AAU: Addis Ababa University

ASTU: Adama Science and Technology University

BPR: Business Process Re-engineering

BYOD: Bring Your Own Device

CE: Computer Engineering

CS: Computer Science

CTE: College of Teachers Education

DL: Digital Leader

DS: Digital Skills

DSCAP: Digital Skills Country Action Plan

DSp: Digital Specialist

EE: Electrical Engineering

EthERNet: Ethiopian Education and Research Network

FDRE: Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

FTE: Federal TVET Institute

GER: Gross Enrollment Ratio

HE: Higher Education

HEI: Higher Education Institutions

ICT: Information Communication Technology

IRD: Inception Report Document

IS: Information Science / System

ISCED: International Standard Classification of Education

ISMIS: Integrated Student Management Information System

IT: Information Technology

MInT: Ministry of Innovation and Technology



MIS: Management Information System

MoE: Ministry of Education

MoSHE: Ministry of Science and Higher Education

PIDA: Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa

PRIDA: Policy and Regulatory Initiative for Digital Africa

TVET: Technical and Vocational Education

WB: World Bank



Annex II: List of Public Universities and Number of Students and Faculty in

Public Universities

No Name of the University

Number

of

Students

(2019/20)

Number

of Faculty

(2019/20)

Total Student

and Faculty

1 Addis Ababa University 48,717 2,454 51,171

2 Jimma University 34,559 1,882 36,441

3 Hawassa University 44,424 1,480 45,904

4 Arba Minch University 35,749 947 36,696

5 Mekelle University 29,115 1,989 31,104

6 Bahir Dar University 46,296 1,638 47,934

7 Haramaya University 28,843 809 29,652

8 University of Gondar 45,656 2,592 48,248

9 Adama Science and Technology University 7,510 354 7,864

10 Addis Ababa Science and Technology University 8,227 858 9,085

11 Debre Markos University 13,172 938 14,110

12 Dire Dawa University 19,988 636 20,624

13 Adigrat University 19,585 815 20,400

14 Wolaita Sodo University 34,627 1,024 35,651

15 Debre Berhan University 28,761 741 29,502

16 Wolkite University 14,867 776 15,643

17 Dilla University 29,468 819 30,287

18 Wollo University 29,324 1,072 30,396

19 Madda Walabu University 23,451 726 24,177

20 Semera University 9,257 624 9,881

21 Jigjiga University 26,710 995 27,705

22 Debre Tabor University 15,798 508 16,306

23 Wollega University 19,850 736 20,586

24 Bule Hora University 10,406 587 10,993

25 Mizan Tepi University 17,483 780 18,263

26 Mettu University 13,350 413 13,763

27 Wachamo University 23,710 680 24,390

28 Woldia University 20,900 589 21,489

29 Ambo University 28,157 358 28,515

30 Assosa University 11,752 464 12,216

31 Arsi University 13,371 537 13,908

32 Axum University 26,942 1,198 28,140

33 Bonga University 4,754 195 4,949

34 Dembi Dolo University 4,332 263 4,595

35 Gambella University 5,080 275 5,355



No Name of the University

Number

of

Students

(2019/20)

Number

of Faculty

(2019/20)

Total Student

and Faculty

36 Injibara University 5,750 178 5,928

37 Jinka University 4,175 172 4,347

38 Kebri Dehar University 2,914 197 3,111

39 Kotebe Metropolitan University 2,050 200 2,050

40 Mekidela Amba University 5,260 174 5,434

41 Oda Bultum University 4,285 229 4,514

42 Raya University 4,477 214 4,691

43 Werabe University 4,275 175 4,450

44 Selale University 4,740 375 5,115

45 Debark University 4,128 152 4,280

46 Civil Service University 7,000 400 7,400

47 Defense University 2,500 200 2,700

48 Police University College 2,000 200 2,200

49 Oromia State University 2,000 200 2,220

50 St Paul Millennium Medical College 3,000 220 3,220 Total 852,745 35,038 887,603



Annex III: e-Competence: Title and description

A. PLAN

A.1. IS and Business Strategy Alignment: Anticipates long term business requirements,

influences improvement of organizational process efficiency and effectiveness. Determines the IS

model and the enterprise architecture in line with the organization’s policy and ensures a secure

environment. Makes strategic IS policy decisions for the enterprise, including sourcing strategies.

A.2. Service Level Management: Defines, validates, and makes applicable service level

agreements (SLAs) and underpinning contracts for services offered. Negotiates service

performance levels considering the needs and capacity of stakeholders and business.

A.3. Business Plan Development: Addresses the design and structure of a business or product

plan including the identification of alternative approaches as well as return on investment

propositions. Considers the possible and applicable sourcing models. Presents cost benefit analysis

and reasoned arguments in support of the selected strategy. Ensures compliance with business and

technology strategies. Communicates and sells business plan to relevant stakeholders and

addresses political, financial, and organizational interests.

A.4. Product/Service Planning: Analyses and defines current and target status. Estimates cost

effectiveness, points of risk, opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses, with a critical approach.

Creates structured plans; establishes time scales and milestones, ensuring optimization of activities

and resources. Manages change requests. Defines delivery quantity and provides an overview of

additional documentation requirements. Specifies correct handling of products, including legal

issues, in accordance with current regulations.

A.5. Architecture Design: Specifies, refines, updates, and makes available a formal approach to

implement solutions, necessary to develop and operate the IS architecture. Identifies change

requirements and the components involved: hardware, software, applications, processes,

information, and technology platform. Considers interoperability, scalability, usability, and

security. Maintains alignment between business evolution and technology developments.

A.6. Application Design: Analyses, specifies, updates, and makes available a model to implement

applications in accordance with IS policy and user/ customer needs. Selects appropriate technical

options for application design, optimizing the balance between cost and quality. Designs data

structures and builds system structure models according to analysis results through modelling

languages. Ensures that all aspects take account of interoperability, usability, and security.

Identifies a common reference framework to validate the models with representative users, based

upon development models (e.g., iterative approach).

A.7. Technology Trend Monitoring: Investigates latest ICT technological developments to

establish understanding of evolving technologies. Devises innovative solutions for integration of



new technology into existing products, applications, or services or for the creation of new

solutions.

A.8. Sustainable Development: Estimates the impact of ICT solutions in terms of eco

responsibilities including energy consumption. Advises business and ICT stakeholders on

sustainable alternatives that are consistent with the business strategy. Applies an ICT purchasing

and sales policy which fulfils eco-responsibilities.

A.9. Innovating: Devises creative solutions for the provision of new concepts, ideas, products, or

services. Deploys novel and open thinking to envision exploitation of technological advances to

address business/society needs or research direction.

B. BUILD

B.1. Application Development: Interprets the application design to develop a suitable application

in accordance with customer needs. Adapts existing solutions by e.g., porting an application to

another operating system. Codes, debugs, tests and documents and communicates product

development stages. Selects appropriate technical options for development such as reusing,

improving or reconfiguration of existing components. Optimizes efficiency, cost, and quality.

Validates results with user representatives, integrates and commissions the overall solution.

B.2. Component Integration: Integrates hardware, software, or sub system components into an

existing or a new system. Complies with established processes and procedures such as,

configuration management and package maintenance. Takes into account the compatibility of

existing and new modules to ensure system integrity, system interoperability and information

security. Verifies and tests system capacity and performance and documentation of successful

integration.

B.3. Testing: Constructs and executes systematic test procedures for ICT systems or customer

usability requirements to establish compliance with design specifications. Ensures that new or

revised components or systems perform to expectation. Ensures meeting of internal, external,

national, and international standards, including health and safety, usability, performance,

reliability, or compatibility. Produces documents and reports to evidence certification

requirements

B.4. Solution Deployment: Following predefined general standards of practice carries out planned

necessary interventions to implement solution, including installing, upgrading, or

decommissioning. Configures hardware, software, or network to ensure interoperability of system

components and debugs any resultant faults or incompatibilities. Engages additional specialist

resources if required, such as third-party network providers. Formally hands over fully operational

solution to user and completes documentation recording all relevant information, including

equipment addressees, configuration, and performance data.



B.5. Documentation Production: Produces documents describing products, services,

components, or applications to establish compliance with relevant documentation requirements.

Selects appropriate style and media for presentation materials. Creates templates for document-

management systems. Ensures that functions and features are documented in an appropriate way.

Ensures that existing documents are valid and up to date.

B.6. Systems Engineering: Engineers software and/or hardware components to meet solution

requirements such as specifications, costs, quality, time, energy efficiency, information security

and data protection. Follows a systematic methodology to analyse and build the required

components and interfaces. Builds system structure models and conducts system behavior

simulation. Performs unit and system tests to ensure requirements are met.

C. RUN

C.1. User Support: Responds to user requests and issues, recording relevant information. Assures

resolution or escalates incidents and optimizes system performance in accordance with predefined

service level agreements (SLAs). Understands how to monitor solution outcome and resultant

customer satisfaction.

C.2. Change Support: Implements and guides the evolution of an ICT solution. Ensures efficient

control and scheduling of software or hardware modifications to prevent multiple upgrades

creating unpredictable outcomes. Minimizes service disruption as a consequence of changes and

adheres to defined service level agreement (SLA). Ensures consideration and compliance with

information security procedures.

C.3. Service Delivery: Ensures service delivery in accordance with established service level

agreements (SLA‘s). Takes proactive action to ensure stable and secure applications and ICT

infrastructure to avoid potential service disruptions, attending to capacity planning and to

information security. Updates operational document library and logs all service incidents.

Maintains monitoring and management tools (i.e., scripts, procedures). Maintains IS services.

Takes proactive measures.

C.4. Problem Management: Identifies and resolves the root cause of incidents. Takes a proactive

approach to avoidance or identification of root cause of ICT problems. Deploys a knowledge

system based on recurrence of common errors. Resolves or escalates incidents. Optimizes system

or component performance.

D. ENABLE

D.1. Information Security Strategy Development: Defines and makes applicable a formal

organizational strategy, scope, and culture to maintain safety and security of information from

external and internal threats, i.e., digital forensic for corporate investigations or intrusion

investigation. Provides the foundation for Information Security Management, including role



identification and accountability. Uses defined standards to create objectives for information

integrity, availability, and data privacy.

D.2. ICT Quality Strategy Development: Defines, improves, and refines a formal strategy to

satisfy customer expectations and improve business performance (balance between cost and risks).

Identifies critical processes influencing service delivery and product performance for definition in

the ICT quality management system. Uses defined standards to formulate objectives for service

management, product, and process quality. Identifies ICT quality management accountability.

D.3. Education and Training Provision: Defines and implements ICT training policy to address

organizational skill needs and gaps. Structures, organizes, and schedules training programmes and

evaluates training quality through a feedback process and implements continuous improvement.

Adapts training plans to address changing demand.

D.4. Purchasing: Applies a consistent procurement procedure, including deployment of the

following sub processes: specification requirements, supplier identification, proposal analysis,

evaluation of the energy efficiency and environmental compliance of products, suppliers and their

processes, contract negotiation, supplier selection and contract placement. Ensures that the entire

purchasing process is fit for purpose, adds business value to the organization compliant to legal

and regulatory requirements.

D.8. Contract Management: Provides and negotiates contract in accordance with organizational

processes. Ensures that contract and deliverables are provided on time, meet quality standards, and

conform to compliance requirements. Addresses non-compliance, escalates significant issues,

drives recovery plans and if necessary, amends contracts. Maintains budget integrity. Assesses and

addresses supplier compliance to legal, health and safety and security standards. Actively pursues

regular supplier communication

D.9. Personnel Development: Diagnoses individual and group competence, identifying skill

needs and skill gaps. Reviews training and development options and selects appropriate

methodology taking into account the individual, project, and business requirements. Coaches

and/or mentors individuals and teams to address learning needs.

D.10. Information and Knowledge Management: Identifies and manages structured and

unstructured information and considers information distribution policies. Creates information

structure to enable exploitation and optimization of information. Understands appropriate tools to

be deployed to create, extract, maintain, renew, and propagate business knowledge in order to

capitalize from the information asset.

D.11. Needs Identification: Actively listens to internal/external customers, articulates, and

clarifies their needs. Manages the relationship with all stakeholders to ensure that the solution is

in line with business requirements. Proposes different solutions (e.g., make-or-buy), by performing

contextual analysis in support of user centered system design. Advises the customer on appropriate



solution choices. Acts as an advocate engaging in the implementation or configuration process of

the chosen solution.

E. MANAGE

E.1. Forecast Development: Interprets market needs and evaluates market acceptance of products

or services. Assesses the organization’s potential to meet future production and quality

requirements. Applies relevant metrics to enable accurate decision making in support of

production, marketing, sales, and distribution functions

E.2. Project and Portfolio Management: Implements plans for a programme of change. Plans

and directs a single or portfolio of ICT projects to ensure co-ordination and management of

interdependencies. Orchestrates projects to develop or implement new, internal, or externally

defined processes to meet identified business needs. Defines activities, responsibilities, critical

milestones, resources, skills need, interfaces and budget, optimizes costs and time utilization,

minimizes waste, and strives for high quality. Develops contingency plans to address potential

implementation issues. Delivers project on time, on budget and in accordance with original

requirements. Creates and maintains documents to facilitate monitoring of project progress.

E.3. Risk Management: Implements the management of risk across information systems through

the application of the enterprise defined risk management policy and procedure. Assesses risk to

the organization’s business, including web, cloud, and mobile resources. Documents potential risk

and containment plans.

E.4. Relationship Management: Establishes and maintains positive business relationships

between stakeholders (internal or external) deploying and complying with organizational

processes. Maintains regular communication with customer/partner/supplier, and addresses needs

through empathy with their environment and managing supply chain communications. Ensures

that stakeholder needs, concerns or complaints are understood and addressed in accordance with

organizational policy.

E.5. Process Improvement: Measures effectiveness of existing ICT processes. Research and

benchmarks ICT process design from a variety of sources. Follows a systematic methodology to

evaluate, design and implement process or technology changes for measurable business benefit.

Assesses potential adverse consequences of process change.

E.6. ICT Quality Management: Implements ICT quality policy to maintain and enhance service

and product provision. Plans and defines indicators to manage quality with respect to ICT strategy.

E.7. Business Change Management: Assesses the implications of new digital solutions. Defines

the requirements and quantifies the business benefits. Manages the deployment of change taking

into account structural and cultural issues. Maintains business and process continuity throughout

change, monitoring the impact, taking any required remedial action, and refining approach.



E.8. Information Security Management: Implements information security policy. Monitors and

takes action against intrusion, fraud and security breaches or leaks. Ensures that security risks are

analyzed and managed with respect to enterprise data and information. Reviews security incidents

makes recommendations for security policy and strategy to ensure continuous improvement of

security provision.

E.9. IS Governance: Defines, deploys, and controls the management of information systems in

line with business imperatives. Takes into account all internal and external parameters such as

legislation and industry standard compliance to influence risk management and resource

deployment to achieve balanced business benefit.



Annex IV: Sample Responses for Capacity Building requirement survey

6 6

8

4

6

34

1

32

10 0

10

0

2

4

6

8

10

IS and business

Strategy

alignment

Business plan

development

Architecture

Design

Technology Trend

Monitoring

Innovating

Competency requirement survey for Digital

Leaders

Crucial (extremely important)

Necessary (needed to achieve a particular result)

Desirable (worth having and wanted by some people)

Nutral (I do not know)

Not important

78

65

9

23 3

5

23

1

32

1

0123456789

10

System

Engineering

Information

Security

Management

User Support Application

Development

Problem

Management

Competency requirement survey for Digital

Specialists

Crucial (extremely important)

Necessary (needed to achieve a particular result)

Desirable (worth having and wanted by some people)

Nutral (I do not know)

Not important

Digital Skills Country Action Plan for Ethiopian HE and TVET … · 2021. 1. 16. · Digital Skills...

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