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In order to remove incongruity in undergraduate program (BSc in Architecture), Architecture and Urban Planning Department has hosted a two-day national curriculum revision workshop from 26-27th May, 2017; and consensually curtailed its duration to 5 years, pruned redundancy to get it re-harmonized and thoroughly market-driven across the globe. Click here to see the picture

Institute of Technology’s Scientific Director, Dr Alemayehu Chufamo, accorded welcome to the participants and said this initiative will benefit all 17 universities running this program and the end-beneficiaries will be graduates. He also lauded the department for leading from the front.

Academic Affairs Vice President, Dr Yechale Kebede, gracing the event said, development path Ethiopia has embarked on requires a workforce that is scientifically and technologically adept, herein programs which cater to market needs serve the purpose. Therefore, this initiative aimed at re-harmonizing BSc program in Architecture will eradicate existing anomalies and get it thoroughly optimized to make it market-centric and sector-relevant.

Lauding Architecture and Urban Planning Department for the initiative, he reiterated AMU’s commitment to extend required assistance for the same. He also assured that finally approved 5-year program (BSc in Architecture) would be launched in September 2017 and expects all partnering universities to follow the suit across Ethiopia.

Rajendra Kunwar and Michael Manus spoke on ‘Existing curriculum with course catalogue and need to change.’ After preliminary session, participants were divided into four panels to look into the pros and cons and contextual relevance; panel-I deliberated upon 20 courses, panel-II perused 14, panel-III 15 and panel-IV dwelt into 9 courses.

After discussion followed the pruning act; some courses like Integrated Design Project-IV, Cost-Efficient Construction, Quality Management & Capacity Building and Thesis seminar were removed; new courses, Introduction to Research Methodology and Surveying were introduced.

Similarly, courses such as Urban Sociology-I & II have been merged; General Building Heritage and Ethiopian Building Heritage got clubbed as ‘Architectural Heritage’; three courses, Introduction to Environmental Planning, Introduction to Environmental Assessment and General Ecology are interwoven into one such as ‘Ecological Architecture & Urbanization’.

Rajendra Kunwar on the sideline of workshop said, three years back, Ministry of Education had issued notification to curtail duration of program to 5 years. And discrepancies in imparting courses in some universities if allowed might have undermined the rationale of the program.

Therefore, to remove anomalies, AMU took lead in approaching 17 universities in Ethiopia running this program, they were also intimated and invited to partake in national workshop to get it revised, wherein representatives from 12 universities participated, he informed.

Further he adds some redundancies in courses were removed, new introduced and few got merged. Suggestions and feedbacks will be incorporated in the final draft to be sent to universities for endorsement and then to Ministry of Education for approval.

The technical issues which deliberated were such as courses which weren’t well defined i.e. building workshop, advance model-making techniques, etc. so, content from them were pulled and absorbed into the architectural courses.

At the end, Biju Panicker recapped the proceedings, Uta Grass looked into views aired by invitees, Dr Ely and Mr Michael also contributed while Mr Hagos Aman proposed the vote of thanks. Representatives from, Hawassa, Mekelle, Dire Dawa, Dilla, Wolkite, Jimma, Wollo, Wachamo, Wolaita Sodo, Ambo, Adigrat, Gonder and Dilla universities were in attendance.

 

(Corporate Communication Directorate)