Teachers from Ethiopian universities in IIMA's Faculty Development Programme

Ten faculty members of the Business Management Departments of the Addis Ababa and the Adama Universities in Ethiopia are attending the 32nd Faculty Development Programme of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) that began yesterday.

The Ethiopian teachers and 34 Indian participants in the programme will spend three months at the Institute during which they will have an opportunity to enhance their teaching and research capabilities.

A press release from IIMA said they would participate in a series of courses and specially-designed workshops, all of them aimed at acquainting them with the latest developments in the various disciplines of management and with the pedagogical approach at IIMA.

According to it, this initiative is a part of a wider collaboration of IIMA with management institutions in Ethiopia. It is an outcome of the dialogue between a high level Ethiopian delegation led by Dr Adhana Haile, Minister of State of Education, Ethiopia and Prof Samir K Barua, Director, IIMA during January this year.

"Our engagement with foreign B-schools has come a long way in ensuring that our academic collaborations remain relevant to management schools from the developing nations, while we continue to forge partnerships with the top ranked B-schools in the world, " Prof Barua said. The Institute is also planning a longer-term arrangement for the professional development of management educators from Ethiopia.

For the Institute, at the threshold of its 50th year, the IIMA- Ethiopian Universities Partnership is a modern complement of the historical ties that the city of Ahmedabad and India have shared with Ethiopia in the past.

The IIMA’s logo is a stylized representation of what is perhaps the best known symbol of Ahmedabad—the stone tracery window from the mosque built around 1571-72 by Sidi Saiyed, an Ethiopian military commander who served the Gujarat sultanate and a holy man, the release added.

NNN