It is needless to say that Eritrea’s primary resource is its human capacity. And it is taking this into consideration that the government has been exerting substantial efforts to develop human resource capacity through opening different institutions of higher learning across the country.

As a result of these consistent efforts, the College of Business and Economics and that of Health Sciences graduated one in Masters Degree, 306 in Degree and the remaining in Diploma program, a total of 528 students, last Saturday, October 04, 2008 at University of Asmara.

Dr. Yemane Mesghenna, the Dean of College of Business and Economics, clearly put it during the graduation ceremony: “The achievement of the graduating class of 2008 is a fruit of the government’s wise investment on human capacity development.”

In an effort to increase the access to higher education while decentralizing the distribution of higher education in the country and at the same time produce skilled personnel that could take part in the development efforts taking place in the country, the government of Eritrea established in 2003 seven Institutions of Higher Education (IHE). These are the Eritrean Institute of Technology (EIT), Hamelmalo College of Agriculture, Orotta School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences, College of Business and Economics, College of Arts and Social Sciences, College of Marine Sciences and Technology.

These institutions were later put under were the Provisional Commission for Coordination of Higher Education under the office of the President. The responsibility of the commission is to coordinate, consult and exchange ideas pertaining to higher education and create synergy among the different institutions.

One of this year’s graduating colleges, the college of Business and Economics was established in May 2004 at Halhale. With a capacity to accommodate up to 2,400 students, 65% out of these for degree and 35% for diploma programs, the College is currently running degree and diploma programs in ten disciplines.

Aiming to be the center of academic excellence and economic research in the country, the College is working to cultivate productive and responsible citizens with requisite knowledge and skills under its domain.

As Dr. Yemane pointed out in his graduation day, the imperative today is to produce high quality graduates on a continuous basis so as to meet the demands of business institutions.

He further said that the College will introduce its revised curriculum for its undergraduate program as of the next academic year. It also has plans to launch its graduate program with an MA in Economics and MBA in Accounting and Management.

The College of Health Sciences, on the other hand, is one of the oldest colleges. Established in 1995 with the aim to produce competent health professionals and scholars to address the nation’s health needs, the college set up four degree programs in various health disciplines and graduated 450 students between 1995 and 2005.

Following the establishment of the Institutions of Higher Education, the College of Health Sciences started integrating its academic programs and its administrative structure with the other health training programs, namely the Orotta School of Medicine and the Asmara College of Nursing and Health Technologies. At present the College of Health Sciences has four schools: the School of Allied Health Professions, School of Nursing, School of Pharmacy, and School of Public Health.

The College of Health Sciences presently enrolls up to 1,500 students, 689 out of which are in the degree program. The College has to date graduated 519 students in degree, including those of this year’s commencement.

Dr. Azieb Oqubaghebriel, Dean of the College, said on the occasion that the graduates, which are 33 in number, are those who completed their academic requirements under the University of Asmara. She explained that the college is yet to graduate its direct entry students from all the disciples as of next year.

“The current graduates, although small in number, will be a quality addition to the workforce,” she added.

The college is planning to establish partnership with external similar collages and enhance post graduate programs and researches as well. Furthermore, several curricula for upgrading diploma graduates to degree levels have already been developed to address the staff development needs and admissions have already started and will continue.

“The Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) are jointly offering more than 40 degree and about 37 diploma programs with more than 10,000 students in the academic year 2007/2008.”

This was disclosed during the graduation ceremony by Dr. Bisrat Ghebru, who spoke on behalf of the Executive Director of the National Board for Higher Education, Dr. Tadesse Mehari.

Dr. Bisrat in her speech further said that the scholarship for candidates of further education, which had been temporarily halted, has now started and that about 20 graduate assistants have already been sent to China and India to pursue their postgraduate studies in different fields. This opportunity is expected to expand to eligible candidates from other ministries as soon as possible, she added.

(Compiled from Eritrean Profile Vol. 15 No. 62 Wednesday, 8th of October, 2008)