Vol.3, No.5, 759-767 (2012) Agricultural Sciences
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/as.2012.35092
Competency and constraints of higher education and
research institutions for rural transformation in the
Amhara region, Ethiopia
Get achew Alemayehu1*, Sisay Yehuala2, Yonas Worku3, Zerihun Nigussie4,
Girmachew Seraw4
1Department of Plant Science, College of Agriculture and Environmental Science, Bahir-Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia;
*Corresponding Author:
2Department of Rural Development and Agricultural Extension, Faculty of Agriculture, Gondar University, Gondar, Ethiopia
3North Gondar Research Centre, Amhara Region Agricultural Research Institute, Gondar, Ethiopia
4Department of Rural Development, College of Agriculture and Environmental Science, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
Received 13 March 2012; revised 17 April 2012; accepted 6 May 2012
ABSTRACT
Ethiopia is an agrarian country and agriculture
is the backbone of its economy. Consequently,
the government of Ethiopia has devised Agricul-
tural Development Led Industrialization (ADLI)
as the country’s overall economic development
policy. For the last 15 years, public investment
towards the expansion of higher education, re-
search and extension in agriculture has been so
enormous. In reality, however, these higher edu-
cation and research institutions were not suffi-
ciently responsive to rural transformation. Thus,
to evaluate the role of higher education and re-
search institutions in stimulating rural transfor-
mation and to identify main training constraints
accountable for their poor performances in in-
stitutional learning and rural transformation is
of paramount importance. To this effect focus
group discussions and key informant inter-
views were conduc ted. Stratified and purposive
sampling technique was dominantly employed
during the survey studies. The result of the
study has shown that higher education and re-
search institutions were less responsive to ad-
dress the actual problems of small-scale farmers
and they were limited by a number of constraints/
challenges to address the actual problems of
farmers. The major constraints were, to list
some, limited involvement in research and ex-
tension works by the university staff, students
limited practical attachments of the training pro-
grammes with farming communities, limited in-
frastructures and facilities and limited availability
of contextualized learning resources. In address-
ing the aforesaid constrai nts/challe nges, the uni-
versity staff should proportionally allocate time
in the research and extension activities on top of
practical teaching supported by local research
results and experience; involving students on
practical attachments both in their academic
and vacation time; giving emphasis on basic
training preparation like fulfilling libraries, la-
boratories, demonstration fields and transpor-
tation facilities; and lastly to revise the existing
curriculum in to the direction of solving the real
problems of the Amhara region then the country
Ethiopia.
Keywords: Rural Transformation; Higher Education;
Training Constraints; Competency
1. INTRODUCTION
Ethiopia is an agrarian country and agriculture is the
backbone of its economy. Agriculture is thus believed to
be the major source of the country’s economic growth
and its development is expected to adequately drive the
process of industrialization. Because of this fact, the
government of Ethiopia has devised Agricultural Devel-
opment Led Industrialization (ADLI) as the country’s
overall economic development policy and the country
has been investing appreciably towards agricultural grow-
th. Particularly for the last 15 years, public investment
towards the expansion of higher education, research and
extension in agriculture and natural resource manage-
ment has been so enormous. These higher education and
research institutions are expected in turn to play a great
role in stimulating rural transformation. In reality, how-
ever, they are not sufficiently responsive to rural trans-
formation especially addressing problems and priorities

G. Alemayehu et al. / Agricultural Sciences 3 (2012) 759-767
760
of resource poor small-scale farmers.
Higher education and research institutions, notably
Bahir Dar and Gondar Universities and ARARI which
are of the interest of this particular project, are short of
the essential human and institutional capacities to con-
ceptually and methodolog ically address rural transforma-
tion through knowledge generation, training and com-
munication of research findings that reach deep into rural
communities. By and large these institutions undertake
disciplinary trainings and/or distant researches, whereas
agriculture in Amhara region as well as in the country is
mostly run by small-scale farmers who manage various
agricultural practices altogether in less than a hectare of
land under diverse conditions. This calls for responsive
training and research that addresses diversified farmers’
priority constraints.
Higher education institutions in Ethiopia, along with
other institutions in the society, are intimately involved
in the transformation of the society and have to make
hard political and economic choices. They too are char-
acterized by similar struggles as exist in the broader so-
ciety as social forces vie for pre-eminence. As educators
within higher education we do not work in isolated na-
tional contexts [1].
A systemic awareness of the interconnections between
the macro environment, the meso organizational structural
context and the micro cognitive and affective learning
interaction is significant. A lifelong learning framework
forces our gaze both inwards towards individual and or-
ganizational learning and outwards towards relationships
in the broader society [2]. The quality of organizational
learning internally will have major implications for the
institution’s ability to function in new ways externally.
Not only does there need to be recognition of the multi-
ple layers at which the characteristics come into play,
but the ability of organizations to function internally as
learning organizations has major implications for their
competence to function as flexible, collaborative net-
wor ks, externally. We need to also come to the realiza tion
that individual programmes, grounded in a given devel-
opment context or learning framework, cannot exist in an
“alien” environment and need the support of an enabling
system.
Enabling structures and supporting mechanisms are
essential. HEI programmes geared to developing devel-
opment professionals need to be flexible in terms of their
entry requirements, financing, delivery mechanisms and
their curricula. To establish this requires cooperation
both across and within the institution, also with the na-
tional or regional higher education au thorities [3].
HEIs ar e increasing ly seen as part of a matr ix of inter-
linked agencies that are concerned with social and eco-
nomic development within their local, regional or na-
tional contexts. The need for networking both within the
institutions and across institutions of civil society, the
economy and government is being emphasized as the
recognition of strong local integration is seen as com-
plementing abilities to work effectively at global levels.
The balancing of the interests of HEIs, employers and
learners is an ongoing task, necessitating continuing dia-
logue, review, addressing anticipated future needs and
changes as well as current contexts.
The objectives of the study were therefore:
1) To evaluate the role of higher education and re-
search institutions in stimulating rural transformation;
2) To identify main training constraints accountable
for poor performances of higher education and research
institutions in institutio nal learning and rural transforma-
tion.
2. RESEARCH METHODS
Desk study was carried out to get background and
status of higher education and research institutions of
Amhara region/Ethiopia in line with their responsiveness
to rural transformation. Furthermore, survey studies were
conducted to collect primary information from focus
group discussions and key informant interviews. Main
stakeholders were primarily identified and segregated
int o fo ur and eight groups for focus group discussions and
key informant interviews, respectively (Ta ble 1 ). Check-
lists and semi-structured questionnaires were developed
for respective groups of discussants and respondents.
Stratified and purposive sampling technique was do-
minantly employed during the survey studies. Bahir Dar
and Gondar Universities were purposively selected a-
mong higher education institutions available in Amhara
Region and only agriculture related faculties and de-
partments were used for the study. Head s and vi ce heads
of the selected departments, faculties and universities
were almost totally taken as respondents. Instructors
and senior students of the selected departments were
randomly given the questionnaires to respond. Almost
all research directors, programme leaders and research-
ers of ARARI at head quarter office and Gondar Agri-
cultural Research Centre were purposively used for the
study.
Hierarchal purposive sampling was applied to select
heads and agricultural experts at regional, zone and dis-
trict offices of agricultural extension and related sectors
including irrigation, land administration and use, food
security and disaster risk reduction, and cooperative
promotion. All heads and technical departments’ heads of
these sector offices were tried to use for the study. Unless
their number per department was more than 5, question-
naires were given to almost all agricultural experts of the
sector offices mentioned above. In case of exceeding
their number greater than 5 i a department, the experts n

G. Alemayehu et al. / Agricultural Sciences 3 (2012) 759-767 761
Table 1. Groups of stakeholders used for focus group discussions and key informant interviews.
No. Focus groups Main stakeholders Informant groups Samples
1. University heads 18
2. Instructors 36
1 Higher education institutions  Bahir Dar University
 Gondar University
3. Students 88
4. Research heads 11
2 Research institutions
 ARARI head quarter
 Gondar Research Centre 5. Researchers 25
6. Employers (heads) 51
3 Employing organizations
 Extension and related offices
 District and village cabinets
 NGOs
 Privates 7. Employee (alumni) 127
4 Farmers
 Farmers
 Farmers associations 8. Farmers 62
Total 418
of that specific department was selected randomly.
The project was implemented in Amhara region spe-
cifically in north Gondar zone. For that reason, Amhara
regional and north Gondar zone offices of these sectors
in Bahir Dar and Gondar respectively were selected
purposively. Chilga, Dabat and Debark “Woredas” were
selected for district level survey studies, while the three
selected watersheds of the project namely Wujiraba,
Godinge and Mezega are found in these “Woreda”, re-
spectively. All develop ment agents (DAs) working in the
three selected watersheds were used for the study, whereas
farmers in the selected watersheds and in similar gender
and age groups were selected randomly.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Current Competency Status for Rural
Transformation
Stakeholders in the focus group discussions of the
study strongly expressed that higher education and re-
search institutions are less responsive to address the ac-
tual problems of small-scale farmers. In key informant
interviews, however, there was variation among different
stakeholders in responding to a perception question
whether higher education and research institutions are
responsive to address the actual problems of small-scale
farmers or not. Except university heads, employers and
farmers, the majority of respondents including instructors,
students, researchers and research heads replied positive
for the current responsiveness of higher education and
research institutions to transform small scale farmers
who run complex activities under diverse conditions ru-
ral transformation (Figur e 1).
Students were also asked to express their feeling
whether the current training program is adequately pre-
paring them for their future career or not, and most of
them (61.45%) responded affirmatively (Figure 2). Simi-
lar perception question was also forwarded to the alu mni
(employees) of different organizations if the univer-
sity/college fully prepared them for their current assign-
ments and 62.4% of them responded positively (Figure
2).
Contrary to instructors, students and research staff,
50% of university heads responded negatively that higher
education and research institutions are not responsive to
rural transformation (Figure 1). Likewise, most eem-
ployers (70%) of different governmental and non-gov-
ernmental organizations responded negatively for the
capacity of their newly recruited agricultural experts to
facilitate rural transformation and address farmers’ prob-
lems effectively (Figure 3). Farmers also verified that
higher education and research institutions are the least
frequently communicated organizations by farmers (Ta-
ble 2).
The competency of a training or research programme
can be also measured by the extent of consulting farmers
for their indigenous knowledge. Hence, farmers’ opinion
was assessed for the extent of consultation to their in-
digenous knowledge by staffs of different organizations,
and the results clearly revealed that staffs of higher edu-
cation and research institutions almost never consulted
farmers (Table 3). Most respondent farmers (80.6%) in
the Wujiraba, Godinge and Mezega watersheds also ex-
pressed that they don’t get all necessary extension ser-
vices at the spot (Figure 4).
3.2. Constraints/Challenges for Their Low
Rural Transformation Competency
University Staff Assessment
It was expected that higher education and research in-
stitutions in the region are not able to address the actual

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762
Figure 1. Responses of university and research staffs on their responsiveness to addressing small-
scale farmers problem.
Table 2. Responses of farmers on sources of agricultural information and frequency of contact to farmers.
Responses of farmers (frequency)
Organization Never 1 Sometimes 2 Always 3 Mean Rank
Ministry of agriculture extension offices 4 28 30 2.42 2
Environmental protection offices 23 32 5 1.70 4
University 50 9
1.15 7
Technical colleges 58 1 1.02 9
NGOs 23 27 12 1.82 3
Research centers 35 23 1 1.42 5
Regional research organizations 56 3 1.05 8
National and international research organizations 48 10 2 1.23 6
Other farmers 7 12 40 2.56 1
Total frequency 304 145 90
Percentage 56.4% 26.9% 16.7%
Figure 2. Responses of students and alumni (%) on the ad-
equateness of universities/colleges and their current training
programmes to prepare them for their future career or current
assignments.
problems of farmers for rural transformation due to some
limitations. According to the result of the study, about
41.32% and 29.86% of the university head respondents
agreed and strongly agreed respectively with the sug-
gested constraints/challenges that are limiting the per-
formance of their institutions (Figure 5). This result was
also in harmony with the responses of lecturers, about
46.33% and 26.2% of them agreed and strongly agreed
respectively with listed constrain ts as limiting factors for
addressing farmers’ problems and priorities (Figure 6).
Among the constraints/challenges listed to the re-
spondents, as indicated by the response average in the
analysis, the heads group perceived that “Limited practical

G. Alemayehu et al. / Agricultural Sciences 3 (2012) 759-767 763
Figure 3. Responses of employers on the
capacity of newly recruited agricultural
experts to facilitate rural transformation
and address farmers’ problems effectively.
Figure 4. Responses of farmers on whether
or not they get all necessary extension ser-
vices at the spot.
attachments of the training programs with farming com-
munities” is the prior constraint of the institution which
was also supported by instructors group that was rated
second among the different constraints/challenges. On
the other hand “limited infrastructure and facilities like
classrooms, libraries, laboratories, demonstration fields,
transportation facilities etc.” ar e the most important chal-
lenges which were rated first by instructors with a mean
response value o f 4.46 that is close to the value of agree-
ment and a strong agreement (Ta bl e 5 ). This constraint
was also rated second by the group of university heads
with a mean response value of 4.06 (Table 4).
From the different constraints/challenges listed in the
questionnaire, “limited availability of contextualized learn-
ing resources” and “limited opportunities to give practi-
cal based-trainings” were perceived by university heads
as the second most important constraints. Respondents of
university heads ranked “limited consultation of stake-
holders in tertiary level agricultural curriculum review
and development” with a mean response value of 4.00 as
the third main constraints of their institutions. During the
study it was generally observed from the perception of
university staffs that higher learning institutions are lim-
ited by a number of constraints/challenges to address the
actual problems of farmers and to be effective develop-
ment partner playing a great role in stimulating the rural
transformation.
From the survey result, perception of some instructors
indicated that among the constraints listed to them with a
response average value of less 3.5 and greater than 3.0
means a neutral idea to the con straints which means they
did not neither agree nor disagree to the suggested con-
straints of the institutions (Table 5). Accordingly, “the
disciplinary nature of the training approach that fails to
address the actual problems of farmers” and “high staff
turnover” were not perceived by instructors as main con-
straints of higher education institutions. The latter was
not also considered by the head groups as critical con-
straint (Table 4). On the former one, however, university
heads were indifferent from instructors and they rated it
as the fif th ma in c ons tra int w ith a re spon se av erag e v alu e
of 3.89.
On top of teaching, instructors of universities are ex-
pected to be involved actively in research and extension
activities. Their limited involvement in research and ex-
tension works is generally considered as the main con-
straint of universities limiting their training quality. The
results of the present assessment confirmed this fact that
the involvement of university instructors in research and
extension service is very limited (Table 6). Out of 36
Table 3. Responses of farmers on the extent of being consulted by staffs of different organizations for their indigenous knowledge.
Responses of farmers (frequency)
Organization Never 1 Sometimes 2 Always 3 Mean Rank
Training and teaching staff of higher education 53 8 1 1.16 6
Researchers 40 19 2 1.38 5
Extension workers 7 31 24 2.27 1
NGOs officers 22 28 12 1.84 2
Environmental officers 27 32 3 1.61 3
Cooperative promotion experts 34 19 9 1.60 4
Total frequency 183 137 51
Percentage 49.33% 36.93% 13.75%

G. Alemayehu et al. / Agricultural Sciences 3 (2012) 759-767
764
Figure 5. Response of university heads on the different constraints/challenges of higher education institutions.
Table 4. Constraints/Challenges of higher education institutions for their training programmes as rated by university heads.
Constraints/Challenges SD (1)D (2)N (3)A (4) SA (5) Mean Rank
Disciplinary training programs of the universities 1 1 2 9 5 3.89 5
Disciplinary training approach is limited in addressing the actual problems of farmers 1 1 2 9 5 3.89 5
Limited availability of contextualized learning resources 2 1 9 6 4.06 2
Limited opportunities to give practical based-trainings 1 0 2 9 6 4.06 2
Limited consultation of stakeholders in tertiary level agricultural curriculum review
and development 0 3 1 7 7 4.00 3
Lack of inter-disciplinary linkage 0 1 2 12 3 3.94 4
Lack of institutional linkage 0 2 2 11 3 3.83 6
Limited experience of instructors 1 3 3 8 3 3.50 8
Limited knowledge of the local realities 1 1 4 6 6 3.83 6
Limited experiences insights and priorities of farmers and rural communities
diffusion into the training programs of higher education 1 1 6 2 8 3.83 6
Limited practical attachments of the training programs with farming communities 1 2 8 7 4.17 1
Limited research and community services 1 2 1 7 7 3.94 4
High staff turnover 5 6 4 3 3.28 10
Lack of motivation of staff 1 3 4 7 3 3.44 9
Limited budget 2 1 4 6 5 3.61 7
Limited infrastructure and facilities 2 2 5 9 4.06 2
Total frequency 12 27 44 119 86
Total number of respondents = 18
SD = Stro ngly Disagre e; D = Disagree; N = Neutral; A = Agre e; SA = Strongly Agree.
sampled instructors nine (25%) of them did not partici-
pate in any research activities, while the other 10 (28%)
of them spent only up to 10% of their time for reach
works (Table 6). Similarly, the majority of the respon-
dent instructors (66.6%) did not participate in any exten-
sion activities (Table 6). Th e present resu lts showed th at

G. Alemayehu et al. / Agricultural Sciences 3 (2012) 759-767 765
Figure 6. Response of instructors on different constraints/challenges of higher education institutions.
Table 5. Constraints/Challenges of higher learning institutions for their training programmes as rated by university instructors.
Constraints/Challenges SD (1)D (2)N (3)A (4) SA (5) Mean Rank
Disciplinary training programs of the universities 2 2 8 19 4 3.60 11
Disciplinary training approach is limited in addressing the actual problems of farmers 3 4 7 14 6 3.47 14
Limited availability of contextualized learning resources 3 4 21 7 3.91 8
Limited opportunities to give practical based-trainings 2 4 13 15 4.21 4
Limited consultation of stakeholders in tertiary level agricultural curriculum review
and development 1 6 23 5
3.91 8
Lack of inter-disciplinary linkage 3 4 18 10 4.00 7
Lack of institutional linkage 2 3 14 16 4.26 3
Limited experience of instructors 2 2 11 13 7 3.60 11
Limited knowledge of the local realities 2 4 4 21 3 3.56 12
Limited experiences insights and priorities of farmers and rural communities diffusion
into the training programs of higher education 1 3 3 19 8 3.88 9
Limited practical attachments of the training programs with farming communities 2 20 13 4.31 2
Limited research and community services 1 2 23 9 4.14 5
High staff turnover 2 7 16 8 2 3.03 15
Lack of motivation of staff 1 8 5 13 8 3.54 13
Limited budget 2 5 4 14 10 3.71 9
Limited top management support to instructors 1 6 9 11 8 3.54 13
Lack reward systems to motivate academic staff 3 4 17 11 4.03 6
Limited infrastructure and facilities 1 3 9 22 4.46 1
Total frequency 17 56 99 290 164
Total number of respondents = 36
SD = Stro ngly Disagre e; D = Disagree; N = Neutral; A = Agre e; SA = Strongly Agree.

G. Alemayehu et al. / Agricultural Sciences 3 (2012) 759-767
766
Table 6. Working time share (%) of university instructors for various activities.
Responses of instructors for their time spending percentage
Activity 0% 1% - 10% 11% - 25%26% - 50% 51% - 75% >75%
Administration 1 35
Research 9 10 12 5
Extension service 24 9 2 1
Training 1 2 1 11 8 13
Field work 16 16 1 2 1
Field work supervision 22 12 2
university instructors are more involved on theoretical
teaching which is not supported with local research re-
sults and experiences.
4. CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATION
Though most instructors, students, alumni and re-
search staffs responded positively to the responsiveness
of higher education and research institutions to rural
transformation as well as to the adequacy of the current
training programmes for the preparation of their career,
their primary customers mainly employers and farmers
confirmed that higher education and research institutio ns
of Amhara region/Ethiopia are less responsive to rural
transformation particularly in addressing constraints and
priorities of poor resource small-scale farmers. The posi-
tive response of instructors, students, alumni and re-
search staffs might be associated with lack of confidence
to challenge their problems. Besides, providing negative
response to one’s own problems is also uncommon to
some people. Thus, it was recommended that university
heads, lecturers, students, research heads and researchers
should conduct different workshops and meetings to re-
vise and evaluate the responsiveness of higher education
and research institutions towards achieving the intended
objective. All these stake holders with different ideas
should confidentially come together towards a fruitful
exercise for defining solution and reach on consensus.
On the other hand, looking in to the assessment of
university staff, it was generally observed that higher
education and research institutions were limited by a
number of constraints/challenges to address the actual
problems of farmers as well as to be effective develop-
ment partner to play a great role in stimulating the rural
transformation. The major constraints were, to list some,
limited involvement in research and extension works by
the university staff, students limited practical attach-
ments of the training programmes with farming commu-
nities, limited infrastructures and facilities and limited
availability of contextualized learning resources. In ad-
dressing the aforesaid constraints/challenges, the univer-
sity staff should proportionally allocate time in the re-
search and extension activities on top of practical teach-
ing supported by local research results and experience;
involving students on practical attachments both in their
academic and vacation time; giving emphasis also on the
management of training including basic training prepara-
tion supported by libraries, laboratories, demonstration
fields and transp ortation facilities; and lastly to revise th e
existing curriculu m in to the direction of solving the real
problems of the region th en the country.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The original research results of this paper are derived by the
TRANSACT (Strengthening Rural Transformation Competences of
Higher Education and Research Institutions in the Amhara Region,
Ethiopia) project. This project is funded by the Austrian Development
Agency, the operational unit of the Austrian Development Cooperation
(ADC), under the frame of APPEAR (Austrian Partnership Programme
in Higher Education & Research for Development). Hence, the authors
sincerely acknowledge APPEAR-TRANSACT project for its support.
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G. Alemayehu et al. / Agricultural Sciences 3 (2012) 759-767 767
ACRONYMS AND TERMINOLOGIES
1) Amhara: One of the regions in Ethiopia located in
the north western of the country;
2) Gondar: One of the zones in Amhara region located
in the north west of it;
3) Bahir Dar: Capital city of Amhara region located in
the north western of it;
4) Woreda: District;
5) Chilga, Dabat and Debark: Districts geographically
located in north Gondar;
6) Wujiraba, Godinge and Mezega: Name of the three
selected watersheds of the project geographically located
in the above mentioned three Woredas respectively;
7) ARARI: Amhara Region Agricultural Research In-
stitute;
8) ADLI: Agricultural Development Led Industrializa-
tion;
9) DA: Development Agent (Extension worker work-
ing with a farmer at a grass root level);
10) NGO: Non Governme nt al Organization;
11) HEI: Higher Education Institution.