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Social Responsibility in Higher Education: The Case of Ethiopia

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Re-envisioning Higher Education’s Public Mission

Abstract

As the primary organizations charged with studying social issues, universities are responsible for addressing society’s practical problems. This is, perhaps, even more true in a context such as Ethiopia’s, characterized by impressive growth, strong economic development, and ethnic federalism. The chapter’s objective is to improve our understanding of social responsibility as part of the public mission of higher education by comparing how this is interpreted and executed in universities operating in Ethiopia. The chapter is based on interviews and a review of strategy and policy documents. Data show that Ethiopian universities engage in social responsibility without a clear stated focus, policy, or strategy. Among other issues at play, this situation has led society to lose trust in universities’ capacity to tackle its problems. What is needed are robust policy and strategy frameworks and a stronger involvement of society in defining what is a “socially responsible university”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Mission overload” and “mission stretch” may have different connotations in the literature. Generally, the former refers to an increase in demands, whilst the latter identifies the extent to which such demands differ in nature and the stakeholders posing them.

  2. 2.

    The following definitions are cited in Jorge and Andrades (2017, p. 304), and are abridged by the Authors. Another detailed review of literature is also available at Parsons (2014).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Twente (UT), Enschede, The Netherlands

    Leon Cremonini

  2. Addis Ababa University (AAU), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Abebaw Yirga Adamu

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  1. Leon Cremonini
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  2. Abebaw Yirga Adamu
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Correspondence to Leon Cremonini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Antigoni Papadimitriou

  2. Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Marius Boboc

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Cremonini, L., Adamu, A.Y. (2021). Social Responsibility in Higher Education: The Case of Ethiopia. In: Papadimitriou, A., Boboc, M. (eds) Re-envisioning Higher Education’s Public Mission. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55716-4_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55716-4_12

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-55716-4

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