Dambal College

Progress Report and

Performance Report

December 2024
Shegere
City, Laga Tafo

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 Table of Contents
The Institution .......................................................................................................... 01

Infrastructure and Learning Resources…………………………………………………..03

Academic and Support Staff.......................................................................................05

Academic Staff Recruitment and Appointment.........................................................06

Academic Staff Appraisal/Evaluation........................................................................06

Academic Staff Promotion........................................................................................ 07

Academic Staff Development....................................................................................07

Teaching, Learning and Assessment........................................................................07

Program Relevance & Curriculum ...........................................................................10

Inward Supervision................................................................................................... 11

Research and Community Service ………………………………………………………..11

Community Service/Outreach Activities ...................................................................13

Internal Quality Assurance .......................................................................................13

Conclusion................................................................................................................ 15

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 1. Background
Dambal College (DC) is private Colleges that will offer undergraduate programs on Technology,
health and business area in Ethiopia as the accreditation is guaranteed by. DC will contribute its
own part in assuring a qualified human power across all sectors in the country as per ETA
standards. Nowadays, Ethiopia is among one of the fastest growing country. So, to ensure a
sustainable development, it is a must to focus on quality education as per the ETA's standard.

Dambal College located in LagaTafoLaga Dadi around Finfinnee as per assurance from ETA in
2019. DC is requesting for accreditation on five departments: Automotive Technology, Bsc
Nursing, Accounting and Finance, MA in Public Health and MA in Project Management and have
got accreditation.
Based on DC five year strategic plans, the campus prepared this annual plan for 2024/25 A.Y, so as
to achieve its vision and mission in the coming year and beyond. For better coordination and
execution, the plan was classified into six pillars.

1.Infrastructure and Learning Resources

Adequate educational resources are necessary to support the teaching-learning activities of the
Program. These resources include finance, expertise, physical infrastructure, and information and
communication technology, facilities. The physical facilities of the College are largely guided by
the needs of the specific field of study.

1.1. Classrooms
The college has adequate class rooms for the Degree and MSC programs. The area of the class rooms
is adequate to accommodate the current students per session. The class rooms have been furnished
with green boards, instructor tables and chairs, and student armchairs. And also they are well aerated,
lighted and clean. Therefore, we can concluded that the classroom observed were adequately
conducive for teaching and learning of the program.
1.2. Office Accommodation

The college has 16 well organized and equipped offices for academic as well as administrative staffs
emphasizing the availability of separate offices for department heads.

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 1.3. Library

A library supports the teaching and learning and research activities of higher learning institution
through the provision of relevant books and documents. Dambal College have Two libraries(one for UG
and One for PG) which can accommodate 300 students at a time.

The library service in general is adequate in terms of the availability of required books and space for
reading current student population. The library is clean, well lightened and sufficiently aerated, and free
from any sound pollution. In terms of capacity, the library has more than 3505 books including both
printed and copied reference books. There are also journals, newspapers, selected thesis, magazines,
fictions, and dictionaries. In addition, there are five desktop computers in the library that provide
internet access for students to read books and journals online and access soft copy books. The college
has also prepared and enough modules for students. These modules have also been put in the library and
used by regular and extension students.

The College has also entered into an agreement with the WILEY online library to obtain magazines
and journals subscriptions. The College commitment becoming a member of WILEY Online
Library to get access to above 1600 journals and other benefits .Such networks help to develop the
college's research culture.

With regard to the adequacy of collection, there is still shortage of hardcopy reference books like
encyclopedia, relevant academic, and research journals. The College allocated annual budget for the
purchase of books.

The library provides service for 12 hours from Monday to Friday, 9 hours on Saturday and Sunday. It is
open from Monday to Friday 8: am- 8:00 pm, and from Saturday to Sunday 8:00 am - 4:00 pm. The
library service is provided by two librarians. One has training in library science; the other is IT training
candidates.

This illustrates the commitment of the college management to provide efficient and effective support for
staffs and students. The library provides a range of services that include spot reading service, loan
service, and internet service.

1.4. ICT Access

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With the world moving rapidly into digital media and information, the role of ICT in education is
becoming more and more important. The existence of well-functioning ICT at higher learning
institutions is an essential tool for fast information exchange among all staff and students, to allow
them to update themselves in the fast growing information age and get access so as to explore more
academic and other sources of information from the web.

The College have one computer workshops/labs that are meant for ICT related courses. The number of
computers in each laboratory is 15 different storage capacities and speeds. Overall, the laboratories are
good for the purpose it has been designed for. The computers are locally networked and also they are
connected to the internet and installed with relevant applications.

Although the use of electronic learning management systems increases student access and improves
student-teacher interaction, the college has not yet developed an electronic education management
system.

1.5. Workshops and Demonstrations

The College has one furnished workshop for automotive technology department students and fully
equipped demonstrations for the nursing department students.

1.6. Duplication Center

The college has a duplication center which has one duplication machines a photo copy machines
which are used to duplicate teaching materials, modules and exams for regular, extension and distance
students.

Generally, the College has sufficient and appropriate physical facilities and educational resources to ensure its
effective delivery. The College is required to have the following:

i) Adequate classrooms with sufficient facilities;

ii) Adequate academic staff’ office.
iii) Access to an adequate collection of appropriate and up-to-date books ,reports,
journals including electronic resources required to support the needs of the
Program and research among staff and students;
iv) Computer laboratories with facilities for word processing ,spread sheet, database, and
presentation tasks, and internet connection;

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 2. Academic and Support Staff
The quality of an educational program depends strongly on the quality of the staff who provide
teaching and student support. Thus, it is important that the Program has appropriately qualified
and sufficient number of academic staff to ensure effective implementation of its programs, in an
environment that is conducive and encourages recruitment and retention. Institutions should
ensure that their staff recruitment and appointment procedures include means of making certain
that all new staff have the necessary level of competence. They also should establish appropriate
and effective development and appraisal policies that are conducive to staff productivity.

In terms of the proportions of staff with higher level of qualification, MOE requires that the
proportion of PhD holders in a HEI should be at least 30%, the proportion of master holders
should be at least 50%, and bachelor's degree holders should not exceed 20%.

The College has 8 full-time master holder teachers, and 6 full-time teachers are degree holders.
The college has also used well experienced as well as pedagogical trained full time teachers, and a
number of part-time teaching staff to deliver courses. As a result the academic staff to student
ratio is positive.

3. Academic Staff Recruitment and Appointment

The College establishes a clear criterion for appointment of academic staff members. The criteria
comprise academic qualification, years of service, effective teaching experiences, number of
publications. The College has also guidelines, policies and procedures for the staff recruitment and
selection. Vacancies were advertised; applicants were screened by a recruitment committee and
short- listed candidates were interviewed and undertook micro-teaching to test their teaching skills.
All most all of the current staffs have gone through these recruitment procedures when employed.
Furthermore, the culture of giving job descriptions to newly employed academic staff is a standard
practice.

4. Academic Staff Appraisal/Evaluation

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 Staff performance appraisal system helps to identify the strength and weaknesses of staff. The
college has experience, systems and procedures for academic staff appraisal /evaluation involving
students, colleagues and the immediate supervisors /department heads/, academic dean, quality
assurance coordinator. The appraisal is done on semester basis, at the end of each course just
before examination period. Based on this evaluation, the college provided feedback to know their
strong and weak side and ultimately render reward or incentives for those who have good
performance.

5. Academic Staff Promotion

The College sets detailed regulation and procedures for the promotion of academic staff. Further
criteria and the procedures for promotion are also documented in the college legislation (pages 36-
38). Length of service within a given rank, effectiveness in teaching or research, number and
quality of publications, participations in different affairs of the college, participation in public and
professional service are the basic criteria on which promotion is determined. The academic ranks
so far achieved by instructors were assistant lecture and lecturer. Yet, most of these have been
promoted on the basis of their academic qualification .Besides, salary and other benefits were
decided based on service years and contribution to the college.

6. Academic Staff Development

The College has a staff development policy. And it has also plan and budget for short -term
Training. The College has organized pedagogical training as instructional skills and
measurement and evaluation, time management training. The college has given the opportunity
to teachers to attend their master studies at Bahir Dar University for career improvement by
evaluating their performance.

7. Teaching, Learning and Assessment

7.1. Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning is the ultimate goal of imparting knowledge and skills to the student. In the
teaching and learning, teaching methods and teaching technology are important instruments to achieve
the educational goals of HIEs. Appropriate teaching methods are essential to achieve the objectives of
instruction and learning outcomes and to ensure effective implementation of the programs.

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The College made a review of available documents and intensive discussions with the Department
Heads, Academic staff and student representatives and other concerned bodies in order to understand
the nature of teaching and learning methods of the college. The college has developed a general
teaching and learning policy framework in the legislation at institution level.

Distance students have been provided intensive tutoring for two times or rounds for two hours at a
time or a round. The College distance coordination office made distance students to sign up on class
attendance sheet and linked the attendance to results encouraging students to attend tutorials.

The College follows two approaches to continuously evaluate its courses/programs. The one is
semester end instructors’ evaluation conducted by students, department heads and quality assurance
coordinator. The other, which is not implemented yet, is course evaluation .Hence; the college should
develop the necessary tools and materialize its intention to conduct regular course evaluation.

The College instructors have been supervised by the college dean together with department heads,
quality assurance coordinator. This evaluation helped the instructors to see their weaknesses and
strong sides and also helped to improve the quality of their teaching and learning process. The
students in the college have played an important role through their representatives in feeding
information to the department head or academic dean regarding instructor’s presence, mode of
delivery, coverage of courses, utilization of class time etc. Based on the information gathered, the
college management discussed with the instructors to adjust their teaching to fulfill the need of
students. Instructors also strictly followed students to attend the class by using the attendance sheet.

7.2. Assessment

The college has developed a separate assessment policy. Moreover, issues concerning assessment and
examinations are fairly addressed in the Academic-Legislation. These focus on grading rules,
examinations, invigilation, handling irregularities during exam, remarking, and make-up exams.
Moreover, grading schemes and student assessment methods are indicated in the curricula. Students
are assessed through continuous assessment and final examinations covering all the chapters. It
indicates that, depending on the nature of the course, students are assessed through assignments, tests,
quizzes, and practical exam which are given continuously during the semester and term. While the
requirements and efforts to employ a continuous assessment scheme are commendable, there should
be a mechanism to ensure their effective and consistent deployment.

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Concerning the provision of feedback on assessment the legislation has articles providing the right of
students to receive their corrected examination papers; requiring the submission of all marked final
examination papers, along with marking schemes, to the respective department and officially posting
the list of answers for all courses for which correct and complete answers can be worked out.

Regarding the preparation, approval and administration of examination, the College has a clear
guideline for the preparation and administration of examinations. The College has established
examination administration committee. Exam committee is strong to facilitate plus become efficient
in its day to day operation, to ensure the appropriateness of assessments & exams from the preparation
up to the administration phase and ultimately contribute its best to the realization of the college’s
mission ‘’ Produce competent and ethical professionals equipped with the necessary skills and attitude
to the business world.’’ Discussion with the exam committee member, Academic Dean, Department
heads, instructors and students indicated that the college has an effective examination administration
procedure. Once the instructor sets an exam, he/she submits to the examination committee to oversee
examination maters. The exam committee oversees the exam composition, the language clarity,
editing and administration of the examination. The College is in a process re-establish an examination
committee at the department level because this is more effective than the exam committee at college
level as it has the capacity to look into the subject matter of the exam with regard to course coverage,
depth and fairness of the exam.

Regarding the grading of exams, discussion with instructors and students indicated that students can
see their exam papers in a transparent way and can make their complaints regarding the examination
administration and transparency of the grading system.

Regarding the adequacy of student’s complaint mechanism, the college has a clear policy and
mechanism by which student complaints on the course grading, and marking would be addressed.
This is spelt out clearly in Students Appeal Guideline and Academic-Legislation. Discussion held
with student representatives, grade reports were given to them on time before they had been
registered.

8. Program Relevance and Curriculum Revision

Every HEI is expected to justify the relevance of its programs and to have robust procedures for
curriculum design, approval and review. Quality enhancement calls for programs to be regularly

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monitored, rewarded and evaluated. This includes the monitoring, reviewing and evaluating of
institutional structures and processes, and curriculum components (syllabus, teaching methodologies
learning outcomes) as well as student progress, employability and performance.
Therefore, the College has a system for program and curriculum design, approval and review
process. Academic Standards and Curriculum Review Committee is responsible to deliberate on
issues related to curriculum.
With regard to appropriateness of the balance of subject knowledge and transferable skills, the
curriculums of both programs (Accounting & Finance, Management) contain appropriate balance of
theory and practice. However, the credit hours allocated for theory and practice for courses and
programs are not appropriately implemented. During discussion with students and academic staffs
particularly practical session was not implemented with the stated contact hours. Therefore, the
College should balance theoretical and practical experiences and should be maintained in order to
help learners develop the desired competencies and the time allocated for each practical session.

While developing the modular curriculum, there was consensus among academic staff that the
delivery system of the old accounting and finance curriculum followed disciplinary approach rather
than focusing on the competency of the students. The old curriculum also focused on teachers’
engagement rather than students’ engagement and lacked natural flow and unity of ideas. Besides,
the labor market shows the growing and urgent needs to link academic learning with professional
practice in the world of work.

As a result, the then revised curriculum, which shifted to modular system, attempted to address the
problems of the old curriculum. In addition to linking academic learning with professional practice,
the revised modularized gives value for student’s independent activities. Since the course
sequences and coding are standardized, the revised curriculum allows student to transfer freely
within the country from one College/university to other. These qualities of the modular curriculum
are maintained and extended in this revised curriculum too.

9. Inward Supervision

The College has a clear supervision system that ensures and evaluates the teaching and learning
process. The college has prepared a checklist for evaluating instructors while they are teaching.

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After the supervision process is finalized, the supervision team gives feed back to the instructor
every semester and the team and the instructors discussed clearly on this issues on how to improve
it.

10. Research and Community Service

HEIs are expected to actively engage in research activities, provide consultancy services and
engage in community services. In discussions with students and academic staffs, the IQA team
confirmed that various activities have been carried out by the College's research and community
service.

Dambal college understands that higher education institutions are responsible for more than just
teaching and research; they also have a social responsibility. They are encouraged to actively
engage in research, provide consulting services, and engage in community services in addition to
teaching and learning activities.

To put this notion into effect, academic staff members are required to commit 25% of their time to
research. Furthermore, as a higher education institution, the Departments in Dambal college are
obligated to conduct research and participate in outreach initiatives. It was with these proclaimed
public promises and a spirit of understanding that the IQA team considered to validate the existing
research and outreach operations of the departments.

To that end, the college has developed a research and community service coordination office with
well-defined research and outreach policies and guidelines. It has been directed by a coordinator
who reports directly to the dean, as well as a body known as the Research and Community Service
Committee (RCSC). In addition, the college has an annual research plan and report.

Members and responsibilities of the research and community service committee (RCSC) are stated
as follows:

The Committee consists of the following members:

1) Research & Community Service Coordinator …………chairperson

2) Dean ………………………………………………………member
3) Three senior staff selected by the President ….……….members(one is a secretary)
4) Quality Assurance Coordinator ……………….…………member

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Instructors’ participation in the publication of research findings in research journals and sessions
has remained minimal. To address this issue, the college is considering holding a research
conference on health, social, and academic challenges in the near future. On an institutional level,
the college has allocated budget for research activities.

To establish a reputation for itself in research, the college has worked hard to define its research
priorities and to give research a much stronger sense of purpose and direction. It has worked to
build a solid infrastructure to encourage and support research, as well as to develop a broader
research culture, including provision of appropriate research training for inexperienced researchers.

Some of the major activities:

Various infrastructural and other measures have been made to support a greater research culture in
the college. For example:

 A separate research and community services coordination office was established and
empowered by the college.
 Based on college legislation, the office has one coordinator and has formed a committee
with representatives from several areas of the academic staff.
 A funding for research was also set aside by the college.
 In order to fulfill tasks and deliver services, the office has established binding research
and outreach activities guidelines.
 A monthly seminar series was formed, as well as a seminar presentation guideline.
 An adequate auditorium has been prepared for any upcoming conference presentations;
 As a responsible body, the research and community services office thematic area identified
Call for papers distributed. 16 Abstracts were collected based on the call for paper.4 Standard
abstracts are selected finally 1st National Research conference is conducted on December 2022.

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 11. Community Service/Outreach Activities

The College produced a ToR (Terms of Reference) in order to engage various community service
partners and currently 50 Needs Students are sponsored, Books and Exercise books were donated
to Wobari Primary School located in Laga Tafo Laga Dadi town annually , our Extension students
get free transportation services to Laga Dadi and Hayat route daily based on the potential needs
identified by Laga Tafo Town Mayor office,2 Months training is provided to 68 civil servants for
free on basic computer skills. And certificate of training completion and recognition is provided to
trainees and trainer as well.

12. Internal Quality Assurance

Higher education institutions are required to establish and implement internal quality enhancement
processes. Pertaining to this, adequacy of the internal quality depends on the extent to which it
focuses on improving quality of education. In this section, data on whether quality assurance
polices, institutional arrangements and methods are put in place to improve quality education in the
department were analyzed. Internal quality assurance systems include, among other things, clearly
articulated policies, strategies and institutional arrangements that delineate responsibilities and
accountability for quality at all level.

Concerning mechanisms for regular curriculum review of existing curricula, in particular with
processes for ensuring that actions are taken following curriculum evaluation, the college has
reviewed and amended curricula on several occasions. There is Curriculum Review Committee at
institutional level. This committee has a plan to continue the review periodically every four to five
years.

There are exam committees that strictly verify/check the appropriateness of examinations. Exams
are prepared to have at least two codes. Number of students who took exam in a single class room
are manageable i.e. 1:25 so as to prevent the possibility of cheating incidence. Inexcusable
punishment system on students who are caught red handed while cheating during exam. TheCollege
has good practices on examination and supportive supervision .Hence, the college has to develop a
systematic way for the identification and dissemination of good practice that could lead to quality
enhancement.

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 Regarding collecting feedback concerning the quality of teaching and learning, discussion with
senior staff, the college has not yet established linkage with stakeholders such as graduates and
employers so as to collect feedback concerning the quality of teaching and learning.Therefore, the
college should establish linkage with its graduates and employers so as to collect feedback
concerning the quality of teaching and learning.
In general, the College is committed to enhance the educational quality and has definite approach
designed to ensure the enhancement of the quality of its staff and others, it needs to strengthen in
both institutional and program level. On top of this, the institution also must use the results from
quality assurance process to revise and improve structures, processes, curricula, and pedagogy.

13. Conclusions

Generally Dambal College has grown progressively in a planned purposeful way. The college has
good experience in the education sector and graduated many professionals in TVET, and
Undergraduate programs. The overall conclusion of the Progress report is as follows:

1. Dambal College has put in place plenty of infrastructures for teaching and learning that allow the
provision of regular, extension and distance programs.
2. The College has grown with the major increase in programs, in students’ numbers on regular,
extension and in distance education programs.
3. The College has developed a strategic plan and the plan has been revised continuously to enable
it balance with the dynamic conditions.
4. The departments have grown rapidly and now have the capacity to enroll a much larger number
of students in its regular, extension programs.
5. The aims, goals and learning outcomes of the programs are clearly stated and display in curricula.
6. There is inadequate communication of the programs aims, goals, objectives, and learning
outcomes by both internal and external stakeholders. So, the departments should take further
action on the communication and internalization of the aims, goals, objectives, and learning
outcomes to bring equal awareness among the stakeholders of the college and other external
stakeholders

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7. The departments need to introduce robust and comprehensive quality assurance system and
insure that required practice and procedures such as gathering data and making judgments on the
quality and relevance of its core activities –teaching and learning ,research and community
service activities for continuous improvement –are undertaken properly and efficiency.
8. The departments are free to decide on the matters pertaining to the academic program and there is
no inference on the academic issues. But the program leader has not sufficient autonomy to
allocate budget at program level.
9. There is a well-defined job description and mechanisms of evaluating performance of the
program leaders.
10. Each classroom has enough space to accommodate with an average capacity of 50 students.
There are enough armchairs for students and a table for the instructors.
11. There is a research policy and guidelines that are important for research purposes to be practiced
by instructors and students at institutional level.
12. The department needs to develop a research culture among its staff and create a database which
lists the number of research reports produced ,research articles published ,consultancy service
undertaken ,community services provided ,as well the number of academic staff involved in these
activities.
13. The ICT, workshop and Demonstrations are equipped with ---equipment satisfactorily.
14. The library service in general is adequate in terms of availability of books and space for reading
save for shortage in some selected reference books and journals for the program.
15. The programs have appropriately qualified and sufficient number of academic staff to ensure
effective implementation of their programs.
16. Policy and procedure documents are available for the recruitment and appointment of academic
staff.
17. The admission policy of the college is clear and accessible to the majority of staff and students
and newly admitted students are given induction on courses, the rules and regulations and
services available.
18. The counseling service provided by the college is strong, organized and led by a full-time
counselor.
19. Senior staff and talented students have provided academic support to needy students.
20. The college has a system for academic staff evaluation by students and department heads,

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21. Students have been represented at various structures like Academic Commission and other
committees.
22. The college has carried out curriculum reviews; but has to establish a practice of regular cycles of
program reviews.

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