Mulugeta Wodajo

We're back again. It's, Memorial Day as, we seem to be almost every other week because, I guess life comes in the way of, of, these Sunday night interviews. Yeah. Yes. Anyway, it's been great.

But, so as we talked, we're gonna continue, after you've been back home. I think when we last stopped, you've been back home a year and and a lot of things happened in that 1 year. But I guess we're gonna hear a little bit more about what happens with you, the university, until the big changes of the, 6869 and and I don't know, maybe a little bit before that even to kinda catch us up. That's right. What I propose to do, if it's alright with you, is, that we cover under under what I would call phase 1 of the university.

Mhmm. And my involvement, and my involvement in the university for the period of 1962 through 19 68. Okay. Now, as you will remember, I didn't return home until 1963, but I deliberately back track 1 year. So we go to the foundation to the beginning of the university.

Okay. And then we'll stop, in 1968. But if we have time, we'll continue beyond 68 to, you know, wherever that one hour allows us to go. Okay? Okay.

Okay. Well, in session 8, 2 weeks ago, we covered my return and, the 1st year of my stay in the university, roughly 6364. Mhmm. This and now, as I just said, we'll start with, 62 because that's when the university started. Even though I was not there, I think it's appropriate to say how the university was established and started, you know, so the story becomes more complete.

Mhmm. When when was the founding of the college? The university college? Yeah. That was in 1950.

Remember? That was many years. Years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So so 1950 to 62 was the college? Yeah. Okay. Exactly.

Exactly. Okay. 1950 to 62 was the college, UCAA. Mhmm. Also the formation of other colleges, concurrently.

Engineering, agriculture, public health. Do you remember all those? Yeah. In some of our Yeah. Sessions.

And then 62 onwards is, HSRU. And the colleges become constituent units of the university. Yeah. Yeah. When we talk about the founding of the university or the establishment of the university in 62, I think it's important to remember, the context when the university was established.

Mhmm. By this, I mean, you know, in 1962, when it was established, the, it was just immediately almost immediately after the, aborted coup d'etat. The coup d'etat, occurred exactly a year earlier, almost to the day in December of December 18 in December 1961. Now under university's convocation, inauguration was in December 60 2. Wow.

Okay. So this was a a year of, as you can well well, as you can imagine, the the emperor had just returned and been here a year. So people are expecting lots of changes as a result of the coup. Because during the coup, the 3 or 4 days that the coup lasted, all kinds of, criticism had been voiced by the cool leaders on the on on, on on the emperor. Mhmm.

That Ethiopia was lagging behind. It's although it's an ancient country with thousands of no. 3000 years of history. The newer African countries that were born well after, in only a few, only, what, in the 19 sixties and some that were were were ahead of it in terms of education enrollment, in terms of public aid, in terms of, infrastructure development and so forth and so on. So there was a lot of criticism that the, core leaders had said during the time they were in power because they had all the radio to themselves.

I didn't know that. Yeah. They had the radio to themselves, so they were trying to, you know, get public support. So they were blaming the emperor for the, backwardness, in comparison even to African countries of the of Ethiopia. Mhmm.

So, there was a lot of expectation that because of this, because of all of the things that have been said against him, the emperor will seize this opportunity and really, bring in lots of reforms politically. I mean, people are talk were were hoping that there will be political liberalization. People are talking that perhaps there will be, you know, they they will they will allow political parties. There are no political parties as you know during the reign of the emperor. Nor now, but yes.

Not. Yeah. People were hoping that there will be land reform, there will be freedom of speech, a freedom of praise, a private newspapers, private I mean, you know, it was, lots of euphoria, so to say. So when the emperor and and then I should say also a little bit earlier on, in fact, almost, 10 years before that, people in the good old days, you know, before the coup, in the good old days in the in in the same that when the emperor was at the heart of his popularity, people had volunteered to give their year's salary no. No.

They're the the equivalent of 1 month salary spread over a year. Mhmm. You understand me? Yeah. Like, if the salary is $200, you'd they would divide it into 12 parts, and every month, they would take out, you know, whatever, you know, to to 200 divided by 1

Uh-huh. And this was meant to be a contribution for building a monument to the emperor's great contribution. Wow. So some money has been collected and and then, in in the Ministry of Finance. Even I had contributed because in those years, I was teaching for 1 year at, you remember at the theological school.

So for what it was worth, I had given to, whatever my salary was divided by 12. So and and lots of people have done that. Mhmm. There was some money there. The emperor the emperor the emperor acknowledged this great gift and and and had told them in instead in one of his speeches that he would rather have, a more lasting, a more, yeah, a more lasting something that has life of its own, something that would grow and that's something that would contribute to the country instead of just a stone monument.

And he suggested that in his the that whatever money they had collected should be, used to, erect to build a university. Okay. That was, at the time of the university college was being established. But they didn't establish the, the university. They only had that college and but the idea has been, you know, planted.

The seeds of the university had been planted as far back as, you know, the when the university was established. You remember that when the university college was, inaugurated in 1950, there was all kinds of I mean, you know, in the background, there are debates in the government hierarchy. What kind of college should we have? Should we have a a separate college? Should we should we be affiliated with a with a foreign university?

Should we be yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This was part of all that discussion because, the emperor had said, let's use the money that we've collected, too, for a university. Mhmm

So in 19 coming back to, the period under discussion. So when the, in December 1961, where, when the university was inaugurated, the emperor, said, okay. You know, he wants to disservice the money to be used for the university. And he gave on his own accord, his palace, for the university. And that palace of his was, in fact, his father's, RASMOCONAN's, residence during the Minidikira.

And it had been, renovated and upgraded and so forth and so on, but it's all his private property. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So and up until now, that building, which is the central administration of the university, is called Ras Mokadden Hold.

That's interesting. Wow. After his father. That's interesting. Yeah.

So I mean, but that was and then, I mean, there was that's only one building. Right? So there was enough land around that to keep building? Yes. There was enough land around that to keep building, but also the constituent colleges that became part of the university stayed on their respective campuses.

Oh, I see. So it it was it was so it wasn't a single campus? No. Okay. No.

University College was stayed there. It became the arts and science faculty of the university. Mhmm. Alaa Maya, the College of Agriculture in in Haran, stayed there where it was in, you know, 400 kilometers or so in the east in Haran as the as the faculty of agriculture. The same was Gond Republic Health.

The engineering college was in Antis Ababa. It's still there. But, all these were put as a federation of colleges, so to say, and form became the university of, Haile Selass University. So what was in the main hall then? So, I mean, what's left?

What's left in what city and Southfield? I mean, the the University College of King of Arts and Sciences Engineering was already somewhere. Yeah. I mean, you know, the Provincial College of State. So what was in the now university campus?

It it it it they became, I mean, you know, they were consolidated into 1 unit in the sense that they now had a common entrance and admission. Mhmm. They had a common charter, one charter, the only university charter. No. No.

No. I mean, administratively, I understand. But the building, the Ras Makonnen Hall or whatever was the palace. Right? Yeah.

I mean, what did what faculties were in that building or that campus? No. No. So the Ras Makar do not rule the administrative building. There was, an another building was erected soon afterwards, which, where the, faculty of arts was moved from Arath Kilo, from the University College to, to, the Sidiskiulo campus.

Okay. And the Sidiskiulo campus became just the faculty of science alone. So they are so in a year or 2, maybe in in 2 or 3 years, or even a year or 2 in by 1964, where the Ras Mcconnell Hall is and where the which is the head of the which was the center of administration, became this the arts faculty. The arts campus rather. Okay.

So it it it, occupied the faculty of arts, the faculty of education, the school of social, work, the law school, and later on, laboratory 3 school, which about which we'll talk about we'll talk about later. And then the old university college, they are at Kilo campus, became just agriculture, as I said, was at outside of this, however I am. Okay. So that's why they always talk about Aquilio's or Dysquilio. I always know so that's the old and the new service.

Yeah. The so Dysquilio campus is the yeah. Was the word Erasmucharon Hollis and the administrative center and later the faculty of arts and and, related fields like education. And so this kilo was the one with sort of the high walls. At least to me, they seemed high.

Yeah. Yeah. Was there sort of like a tan, yellow used to be. You you remember you took a picture of it? From the outside?

No. But, I mean, from the street, was there kind of a fence, kind of a Was it oh, it was a big fence. Yeah. A big fence with elaborate lines and so forth at the on the main gate because it was it was the emperor's palace. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Ex that's it. I didn't know it was a palace.

Yeah. It was the palace. Oh, that's cool. Interestingly, also, I should say, although, I mean, the emperor freely gave the palace to the university, I mean, his palace to the university. It was also in that very palace that they could leaders had assembled all the government officials, during the coup.

Mhmm. While they were fighting the army and the barrack guard and the army were fighting, the principal ministers and and dignitaries were all assembled in that palace. In fact, in what became what letter? It became my office. And they were just they were just machine guns there right there.

Really? 18 or 20 of them. This is the Derg or this is the 60? No. No.

No. This is the attempted coup in 1960. I didn't know. Did they kill the like, the Derek did? I didn't know they did the same thing.

Oh, yes. They did. Yeah. They had done, and some of them were really great prominent figures like Ras Ababa. Ras Ababa, our guy was the leading patriot during the Italian war.

Wow. And he did not surrender. The Italian sword had done everything possible to get hold of him, to bribe him or to, you know, to to to to to imprison him to but they could I mean, he he was getting that, hole. Russia, you many other dignitaries. I mean, there's a whole list of them.

It's most unfortunate because they when the coup leaders, says that they were losing the war or the coup, you know, they became desperate, and they and they just machine gun them. And and and, there were sons they soon surrendered and, and then that was the end of it. But in the but, they have they are they did that great unfortunate thing. Yeah. That's amazing because, I mean, those people are, you know, you know, they're, national heroes.

I mean, you know, that's not I mean, they're not government officials. I mean, that's a founding Yeah. You know, the founding of modern Ethiopia is is that are those patriots, I mean. Exactly. Exactly.

I mean, some of those who died there were great leaders of Ethiopia. I mean, I could mention names. They won't mean much to you, but I mentioned Rasa Ababa himself. There was this minister of, well, he was minister of many ministries, but of finance. He too was killed there.

Oh, quite a few. Right. Anyway, to come back to our theme Yeah. So this this was, as I said, a period of euphoria, of expectation, and so forth. So the emperor gives his palace, and, we were everybody was hoping that, you know, this would bring in a new era of development and modernization and and liberalization.

The university was given a a new emblem, which was in Gez, which was fantastic. It it says the with the as no. That's good, which means search or inquire about everything and hold on to that which is good. Okay. That's good.

That's good. Concerns. You can inquire on anything and hold on to the good. I mean, the this I said it is fantastic in the sense that first of all, unlike the African countries, we didn't use a Latin motto. Yeah.

It was a guess. And this is from the epistles of Saint Paul. You know, it is from the Bible. So Bible plus, which was more akin to the Ethiopian tradition than than a Latin quote from some English or French scholar of, you know From the colonial. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So it it started in, in well, you know, in good spirit. Yeah.

Yeah. So you remember the 6 colleges that existed and now became one. That's the university college without commission, engineering, agriculture, public health. There was a college called building college, which was like building technology established by the Swedish, and and and theological college. These were the 6 colleges that were put together.

2 of them were outside Addis Ababa. The rest were in Addis. I think I already said that. Mhmm. So what what was Gondar, by the way?

Gondaros Public Health. Oh, Public Health. Okay. And then now it's a medical school or it's both? It's yeah.

It's both. The Derg had, made it entirely medical school. They didn't believe much. I don't know why. I I would have thought they would believe in paramedics, the way the Chinese did did with the foot soldiers.

How do they call them foot soldiers or foot doctors? Yeah. You remember? Yeah. I mean, it was obvious.

But yeah. So Yeah. But but but that made it entirely, medical school, but I think the new regime reinstated the old programs of medical I mean, sanitarians, public health officials, nurses, and so forth. So it's it's a public health college. It's more the emphasis being more on sanitation and, yeah.

And you said there's the building what was that? Is that like is that engineer is it like civil engineering? I didn't I never heard about that one. Which one? You said the Swedes had instituted a one for building engineering?

Building technology. It was called the College of Building Technology. Eventually, it was, it it was combined with the engineering college to become college of engineer college of technology. Okay. But it at the beginning, the Swedes had had build, building technology, and they're trying to the the idea of the Swedes were to see if the old, Ethiopian buildings, you know, huts and so forth that you have in in the countryside could be built in such a way that, they would be they would last longer and they would they would have more.

Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So it was semi research and semi teaching unit. All those and and it helped also in the building of many, many, primary schools in the country.

What the Swiss did was they would go into a countryside and say, okay. You raise some money. Whatever some money you you raise, well, bring the counterpart. I mean, well well we'll we'll double it. You know?.2

We'll we'll have our, we'll match it. And with that many, we'll build we'll build you elementary schools. So the that's what the the Swedes had, this building of primary schools. They didn't want to do it all by themselves. They wanted to have a contribution from the local communities so they would match whatever the communities need.

But is that is that development? I mean, how is that, education? No. No. No.

I mean, that's how it started, the whole building thing. They first came to build schools Yeah. Through this scheme. Yeah. From there, they to to experiment on the most cost effective way of building schools.

Okay. From there, they went into trying to improve the, homes and houses of local Ethiopians in the various parts of the countries in Gurgaon, the Amhara region, in the Tigray region, which led into the college building technology college. Uh-huh. College of building technology, which later on was, combined with the engineering school to become the College of Technology with the with the help of the Germans. I know we're covering a lot of, subsidiary ideas, but that's that's the way it it evolved, the idea evolved.

But also, I mean, it also kinda gives you an idea that, you know, there's a lot of people invested in this enterprise. I mean, not all of them from Ethiopia. I mean, it's just Yeah. Right? I mean, it's you you know, it's hard to see the whole picture.

Right? You just, you know, sort of seeing one prism. Exactly. Exactly. In fact, this is this was my next point.

One of the, hurdles who had in trying to consolidate these various colleges was precisely the fact that these colleges were started with, by different, foreign, countries with, you know, with their own nationalities, with their own, academic, traditions. So there were the English. There were, the English were mostly in the faculty of arts. There are Americans in tile I mean, in a large, part of Americans who are I mean, a large contingent of Americans were at the Agricultural College in Alameda. The College of Technology, was German.

Uh-huh. The Swedish had this, no. The college of technology was German. The Swedish had the building college. And, and the the UNICEF, UNDP, you know, international groups are the the, public health colleague.

So entirely different academic traditions. The manner, the graded, the manner, the admitted students, the curriculum itself, the way they mark this, to, you know, the curriculum was very different. So one of the purposes of the university was precisely to, unify. I mean, at least to have a a common manner of testing and recruiting students, admitting students, common curriculum, format. Yeah.

Is this is this a common theme in other African countries? Like, I don't know. I mean, is this a unique thing to Ethiopia that there are so many different, you know, educational institutions to be amalgamated? Yes. I I think so.

I mean, in a little while, I'll I'll mention how the eclectic nature of the university. I mean, the other African countries most of the other African countries, they simply replicated whatever their colonial past style. I mean, if they were a British colony, whatever it was in Britain, it was more or less transplanted into either Ghana or Nigeria or Sierra Leone. I mean, if you go to Ibadan, or or go to Lagos I mean, if Ibadan is in Lagos. I mean, or if you go to, Ghana, Lagos University, or or the Forabe College in Sierra Leone or or University of Khartoum, it's essentially a replica of what happens in England.

The difference might have been between Edinburgh and Oxford rather than, you know, being a completely different, tradition. So I think on the whole, yes, this was quite unique to Ethiopia because we had to know colonial past, so to say, from which to get this, this university model. So we went our our own way, picking and choosing kind of thing. Interesting. Yeah.

The university was given a new chart a new charter, replacing the old university college charter. There so and the charter was quite liberal, really. You could hardly tell the difference between that charter and any other the most liberal charter or the most yeah. You know, the charter of the most liberal university overseas. I mean, if it grants academic freedom, freedom, of writing, of speech, or and and and comp academic autonomy, and the university the government wouldn't get involved in any of the academic decisions.

Granted the board there was a board, under the charter, which was the governing body of the university, And granted that these mem the members of this board were government officers, government officials, many of the ministers actually. Mhmm. But for really, I mean, I can say, without any hesitation that on most cases, virtually in every case, when they sat as members of the university board, they wore a different hat than they were as as ministers of the realm. And the emperor made makes made, use used to make the emperor used to make, numerous analogies how why the university should be free. I mean, you know, in in our tradition, in the Ethiopian tradition, if by if if it's, someone who is an outlaw If an outlaw if someone who someone murders somebody or makes you know, he's an he's a fugitive.

He goes to a monastery and rings a bell and asks for the protection of that monastery, and he's given complete freedom. The monasteries would he will will shield him from government, you know, from being imprisoned or and so forth. So he made that he made that parallel and told his, whenever there is a student, uprising, you know, later on, he said, no. The university is like a monastery. Wow.

You shouldn't go into the campus unless you're invited to go to the campus. If and when they go out of the campus, then that's different thing. But don't you go into the campus and and and and, you know, start beating students as a whole. Wow. And this was to a large extent, adhere to.

Mhmm. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. I mean, so what I'm you know, did you guys, copy an outside charter? I mean, where'd you get the ideas, the language?

I mean, where did that come from? Again, I think they had, of course, the the the charter of the university college, it was a starting off point. And then they added I mean, they they formed several councils. I was not involved. As I said, I was I was I hadn't even returned in 1962.

But they had, legal, lawyers from Ethiopians as well as foreigners. And I suppose they got copies of, charters from other universities, and then they picked and chose, other situation and laws. So I can't answer that question definitively how exactly charter was drafted. Mhmm. But a number of Ethiopians whom I know did participate.

Justice Shomel mentions to me in the I mean, not too long ago that he he was also involved in the drafting of the charter. And I'm I'm sure other lawyers of the period, you know, the young Ethiopian lawyers who had returned from McGill, a few years earlier. Getache, Kivert, and Shoma, and Ngoosse, and so forth. They must have participated as indeed as must have been, for, you know, people who are at the university college and so forth. And and what about the I mean, it just maybe we'll come back to this, but what about the context at the time?

I mean, this is right on the heels of the coup. Yeah. You know, and much of it transpired on campus. I mean, so, you know, wasn't that, you know, a flavor, you know, when when he's telling the police not to harass, you know, troublemakers later. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what you know, was there no, you know I I don't know. I don't know if people openly criticize the emperor, but weren't there people saying at the time, are are you aren't you being foolish? Why are you giving, you know, protection, you know, for these Well, yeah.

There's there are some critics, no doubt. I mean, there are some people who are, who thought the emperor was becoming naive, And and, I mean, the high ranking officials in the police and in the army, did, you know, did, menace the university, but they were, on the whole, I'm in a fairly I I think we're talking about 2 different periods. At the beginning, when the charter was being drafted and and put into place and the university was being started, there wasn't much value of, students making, boycotting class or raising problems or demonstrating and so forth. It stores the latter part, you know, in, 1968 on honors Yeah. Which I said as I said, was the second It's a different phase.

With that. Yeah. Yeah. But the Yeah. A different phase.

But the first phase is right on the heels of a real coup. So I mean, the but the it was almost just forgotten. I mean, a year later, it's, you know. Well, maybe then. I I don't I don't think, anyone objected to that.

No. That was exactly what they were hoping to get from the government in the sense that it is now a new era. The emperor must have learned his lesson. Mhmm. That the coup leaders have been saying all kinds of, criticism about the emperor.

And, if anything, they would be they would they would gladly accept such liberalizing ideas as the university being completely autonomous and that there should be academic freedom within the university. Some some of them might even, you know Yeah. Might even want it to even outside the university. I have a freedom of speech all over the country. But I don't think you got much, criticism for the liberal chart that, that we got to know.

Okay. Yeah. Well, I don't know how much you want me to go into the details of the university administration. You know, there was these universities. There was this the board, and then the president and the deans department.

It is more or less like what we have here in in in this country. One interesting point is that in the charter, there was a provision that once the number of graduates from the university reached a certain figure, I forgot how much it was like, a 100 or 200, whatever. If there have been if there are if at the time when the university graduate was more than a certain figure, a a representative of the alumni would also join the board. Oh, interesting. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what that's what's interesting. And sure enough, but even before I left the country, even while I was in the university, there was 1, maybe 2, members of the alumni who were also members of the board. Yeah.

That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. I thought I thought that was a good idea. How big was the board?

Do you remember? That's a good question. Roughly. Roughly. 12, 25?

No. No. No. No. It's, I think 9 or 11, something like that.

That's very small. Okay. Yeah. That's probably smaller than the average, you know, community hospital. Okay.

They are so small. Okay. But all of them were, half and half, like, 2 or 3 might have been from the older generation. Mhmm. And the other half would be the the new generation of people who are trained overseas immediately after the after the Italian occupation and who returned into to to the country in the in the early fifties or mid fifties.

I mean, I mean, people like who are, like, 5 to 10 years ahead of me in terms of, returning to Ethiopia. Those who returned in 1954, 55, 56, 50 7, those became by now, you know, big shots. And, so they were also How about how about non Ethiopians? No. Wow.

Okay. The board was entirely Ethiopian. Another interesting feature of the board was that there was always one representative of the clergy on the board. Interesting. Yeah.

Almost like the lay member in a way. I mean, it was it was explicitly to include the church or Yeah. I think so. It's it's part of the charter. So one of the members was even at the university, there was one member who was from the board, from the church.

Wow. I mean, this is understandable in the sense that, you know, until, modern schools were opened, all education was in the hands of the church. Yeah. And the church made people who were very skeptical about what's going on in the, modern schools. They thought, you know, the modern schools would be changing their religion of the young of the youngsters.

You know? They made they would make them Catholics or protestants. Yeah. So just to make sure that the people will be, not not suspicious about what's going on. They they make sure that they added a member of the church as a as a as a member of the board.

Not to mention the fact. I mean, the country is a is a deeply religious country. I mean, not Yes. Exactly. I mean, I grew up here, but I, you know, you forget.

I mean, there is no concept of separation of church and state. No. No. No. No.

The emperor was almost I mean, you know, that It's a religious religious head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

It goes both ways. I mean, so the you wanted to keep them happy also. Is that just Exactly. Yeah. So the, by the the admissions were, regularized to to gain admission into the university.

1 had to pass in 5 in 5 subjects of the school living certificate. I I will say a little bit later what the school living certificate examination is you. It was called ESLCE, Ethiopian School Living Certificate Examination, ESLCE. In fact, I served as a director of that, outfit for 4 years. Yeah.

And I'll, say a little bit about what we did. That examination was intended, had two purposes. 1 was to certify that student had completed his secondary education. And the other one was it was also used as the criterion criteria for university admission. So it had a dual purpose, and it was jointly administered by the university and the minister of education.

Wow. But but as we'll see later on, I mean, you know, it was as the number of kids who graduated from the secondary schools grew exponentially, it was not possible to admit all of those kids who admitted who who who sat for the exams to into the university. So later on, the university was forced to have its own, admission exam. And and then, the ESRC became just a certificate that someone had admit had attained, had had, completed secondary education. Okay.

Yeah. So by I mean, when the university started in 1962, there were about 1,000 students in all of the colleges together. In 1960 to about 1,000. Wait. Wait.

Go back. In, how many did in in the UCAA, you guys were a class of 50? No. No. A 100?

No. 50. Right? No. No.

When I graduated, we were only 18. I don't understand. I wanna remember the number of the number of 50. Maybe it was 50 in the whole school. There were about a 100 in the whole university college about when we started.

At UCAA? Yeah. Okay. So then how do you get to a 1,000? Okay.

Well, now we're running all those colleges. You know? It's not it wasn't just UCAA. Yeah. It was also alum it was agriculture.

It was public health. It was, engineering. You know? So so so it was about 6 colleges together. Plus, this is we're talking about 10 years later in 1962.

So there was 4 years of each school, so I guess yeah. You're right. So that would be so what was that final class size at UCA, when you left? So when you left, you started 18. Right?

So 4 years later, the incoming class was how big? Not too much bigger. Like, 25 to 30. I I I forget, but I can look it up. I don't know.

It just seems like a big jump, but okay. Go ahead. But we're talking about 10 years later, 100 and 6 colleges together now, Fred. That's why. Yeah.

No. Oh, yeah. Yeah. From 18 though still, but yeah. And I mean, maybe some of the other schools are just bigger.

Right? May I don't know. Like, agricultural school is bigger maybe? Yeah. The anyway, I'll I'll I'll get to those figures in a little while.

But the the point I'm trying to make here is that when it started, it was 9,000 in 1962. Mhmm. But 10 years later or 12 years later in 1974, that's when the dare came. The total enrollment of the of the of the of the university. This is full time.

The school the students was 65 6,500. Right. So it is if I keep going Keep going keep going. After. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. That that's a big jump again. Yeah.

66,500 in 1970374. I must I'm I'm glad to say that about 20% of these were in the faculty of education. And I will explain how we managed to bring the enrollment up because it became you know, by the time I left the largest unit in the university with the faculty of education with with 20% of the student money. Yeah. It's huge.

Yeah. The next highest was science Uh-huh. And then agriculture. Agriculture being the 3rd. The target the planning target we had now I know I'm jumping gears now, but the target enrollment target we had was 12, 1, proportion of 1 to 3 in terms of science based classes, majors and arts based, majors.

You know what I mean? Mhmm. So Say it again. For every graduate in the arts areas, we were hoping to have 3 in the science areas. Oh, interesting.

Science including agriculture, public health medicine, everything. 1, 2, 3. And we and we more or less achieved that by 1974. If you added all the students who are in the art areas and, and and make them You know, it was it was like that. But that's interesting.

So if it's 1 to 3 arts and you guys were in the faculty of arts. Right? School of Education was in the faculty of arts? Yeah. So you so that that 80% was everybody else.

Yeah. But if it's 1 to 3, that's 25% has to be in the school of the faculty of the arts. And out of those 20 5, 20 were in education. So you guys had the entire faculty of the arts. We were I mean, we just dwarf the faculty of arts or the faculty of business administration or social work or law.

Law was very, very small. And even in the faculty of arts, Safir, those who are studying history or languages or geography, any of these disciplines, many of them I mean, a vast majority of them were students who are in enrolled in the faculty of education. Wow. Okay. But majoring in those fields.

Yeah. So the faculty of arts eventually became really a service faculty to service faculty of arts. And I had a lot of, complaint about this, You know? We were all criticized that the university was becoming a teacher's training college. But we always are good back saying, well, this is the new this is where we need the graduates the most.

Because by at this time, in in this particular period that we're talking about, the enrollment in the secondary schools all over the country simply exploded. Yeah. And they had to employ large number of Peace Corps volunteers to man the secondary schools. There just were not enough teachers, Ethiopian teachers with the with the requisite qualification to teach in the secondary schools. So our main task are in the faculty of education was to replace these preschool teachers, as early as possible, you know, by having, graduate student I mean, students who had the BA to teach in the in the secondary schools.

The a a national growth. I mean, you know, like, when the students enter 8th grade and finish 8th grade, they automatically open the 9th grade, which will become a secondary school. It was not a planned growth in the secondary schools. This is what I'm trying to say. The secondary schools simply mushroomed because as students moved grades from 8 to 9, you know, whatever, and each, elementary school added a one grade and called it a secondary school.

And this happened all over the country unprepared and in terms of, resources, in terms, the borrowed treatment resources. I mean, in terms of books, in terms of teachers, in terms of anything. You know, it it simply went, unplanned. I'm just asking even before that. I mean, after all I mean, you went to a church school.

Yeah. You know, and then through a couple of, I mean, things that were exceptional ended up at the school. Yeah. I mean, the rest of the country, I would assume, didn't have such a lucky break. Why all of a sudden did, you know, public primary schooling and secondary schooling take off?

I mean, what Oh, I I could have mentioned that I was, I was restricting my comments on, on the university and then my own work on the university, but the school system grew exponentially in the provinces and the United Arab Emirates in terms of primary school and secondary school. If you wish me, I can look in I I could look up the figures and and and and go and then give you some idea next, in the next session. But, I mean, there were secondary schools, in virtually all not virtually, in all for the provinces. And some of the provinces are 3, 4, 5 secondary schools. Mhmm.

And the student population, by 1974, Then when the coup when the that it came, the entire student population, the primary and secondary, had reached close to 2,000,000. Yeah. So it was not the Which is one tenth of the country because that that tells 25, 30,000,000. Yeah. It had reached 1,800,000 students in the primary and secondary schools together.

So you can imagine. I mean, it was just a there was insane. Yeah. Yeah. So there was exponential growth.

And if and, I mean, you there was a lot to be to be desired in terms of the quality of the instruction. But, in terms of numbers, I mean, it's it's it was just uncontrolled growth. Yeah. And teacher colleges alone, I mean, you know, there were the ones I remember, there were about 12 teacher training colleges for the elementary schools, for the primary schools, dispersed all over the country. But even those who are not, adequate in terms of I mean, there was no adequate supply of trained school teachers.

So what they did was whoever had 1 year college and dropped out, they were recruited into teacher, to to teach in the in in the elementary schools. Later on, I will talk about the Ethiopian University Service EUS, which is this 1 year requirement that we required every student to, have 1 year in in the rural areas. 90% of those were doing teaching because the other, departments of government, did not have the, absorb through capacity. I mean I mean, the minister of agriculture was not able to take all of our 2nd or 3rd year students, university service students Yeah. To serve as extension workers or I mean, they just didn't have any program.

Mhmm. But the schools were thirsty of our teachers, and, 80, 90% of our university service students became, teachers. And then after that, the Peace Corps volunteers, you know, the schools were, making, tremendous growth. I mean, again, even by African standards, I should emphasize that Ethiopia was still behind. Really?

Yeah. It was still behind. I mean, of course, it's it's different now. It's, thirties later on, but the all African governments or almost all African governments promised their people that they will they would have UPE. What what, what was, UPE means universal primary education.

And some of them attained it, you know, by the 19 eighties and and and some by the 19 nineties. Now, you know, almost all of them have UPE, universal primary education. In Ethiopia, I was told give just as late as only 2, 3 days ago that enrollment ratio is only 80%. Wow. Yeah.

80%. That means, when we talk about enrollment ratio, we're talking about only those who's who who are aged between, 6 and 11, primary school age kids. Of the total number of primary, school age kids, 80% of them are in school. So even now we don't have a 100% school enrollment in terms of, kids 6 age 6 to 11. Wow.

When I left Ethiopia, the, the enrollment ratio was roughly 18, 19, close to 20%, which isn't much even by African standards. But for Ethiopia, which was a very poor country, we didn't have much of natural resources, we didn't have much of an infrastructure there. It was a tremendous loan for the for the resources in terms of the financing of the university. Now of the year of of the school system. Well, why how did the other countries do it then?

I mean, how do they how why was why were they ahead of Ethiopian? They did it over a long period of time, you see, which started in 1941 where, with the return of the emperor. You remember? The countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and so forth had started almost a 100 years before us. Small small schools, but nonetheless, you know, not necessarily by the governments because they were colonial governments, but by churches.

There were missionary schools all over Ghana and Nigeria and Sierra Leone Mhmm. And Kenya and Tanzania and so forth. So they had some kind of foundation. And also the tradition of of fundraising or or the community financing an elementary school, building classrooms, or even hiring teachers had much longer, much deeper roots in in the rest of Africa than in Ethiopia. That's true.

Unfortunately, for a long time, the rural people waited for the government to build a school rather than they themselves doing it. Later on, I mean, this situation did not apply because this the communities were ahead of the government. They would build a building sometimes with the help of this Swedish marching fund, and then they will ask the government to, send them a teacher. But in that period, I'm talking about the fifties, the sixties, and early seventies, the government had to shoulder all the responsibilities for the financing, primary, secondary, and tertiary education, and that was much too much. Yeah.

Wow. I mean, it's hard it's hard to centralize all school construction. I mean, it's not done anywhere. Exactly. Exactly.

And, also, later I will mention it, maybe just as well as, to mention it now. Like, if we take the university with which I'm much more familiar having worked there, all those years, at the beginning in 1960 2, at at this the time that we're talking about now, the unit, the per student unit that the government had for it was each about 6,000 were you know, how much the government paid for each student to the last 6,000 per student. You follow me what I mean? I mean, that's how much it cost them? I mean, what I mean Yeah.

Yeah. That's what that's how much it cost the government. Okay. See, that's the allocation. The budgetary allocation for, the, you know, the university was $6,000 per student.

Okay. By but by the time the Durges came in 1974, The student population had increased much faster than the budgetary increase from government and the and the comparative figure by the by 1974 was just over 3,000%. Wow. You can imagine that. Yeah.

So I mean, and that's for the university. That's for the university. Yeah. Exactly. They know that means that everybody else got cut even worse or, you know, or started a lower number.

Yeah. And, I mean, at the university, if it weren't for the substantial assistance we managed to get, and that was much a good deal of our time, Achilles and my time were taken up. Soliciting funds. I mean, you know, from the Swedes, from the from the USAID, from Canada, from Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, to help us with the purchase of books, the board of trade equipment, topping up salaries. Because, you know, even the stuff that we got for the university, we had to, what we call, top it up.

You know? We would pay the best salary of what would pay an Ethiopian lecturer or an Ethiopian, assistant professor. But to bring it to, that would attract an American to come to Ethiopia. The difference, some agents me would, require, say, say, $20,000 or 30,000 US dollars per year. I mean, I I I just as an example is, of course, a lot more.

All we could pay in Ethiopia was what we would have paid an Ethiopian teacher, lecturer. And then if you pay a lecturer maximum was 12 1,200 biorel. So if you multiply that by 12, it will be like, what, 14, 15,000 biorel a year. Mhmm. So the difference between what we would pay an Ethiopian lecturer and what an American or a European lecturer would want from us, the balance we managed to get it from foreign subsidies.

What what were the numbers again? The the Ethiopians, you'd pay 1,200 biry? For, an assistant professor was a was a 1,200 biry per month. Okay. Per month.

I mean, a foreign teacher, a foreign lecturer, I I I don't know, but, I mean, you know better perhaps, would be easily 5, 6 times that, isn't it? I don't know. Obviously, I would've know. I'm just curious. Well, I mean, because, you know, it's the you'd I mean, now I would imagine if, you know, that you wouldn't pay in better anyway.

You'd pay in in hard cash and plus exchange and, yeah, maybe a big difference. I'm just, so you're still hiring, you know, I mean, what the previous lectures and teachers at the u c a a, how are they paid? I mean, where you know, where did those funds come from? Or how many of those were volunteers and No. No.

There are no volunteers. A good many of them were Jesuits, really. They didn't require much money. They were doing they were, semi missionary kind of thing. And whatever money they earned, they put it into a common pool and, and then sent it to their society in in Canada or whatever.

So, and then then it was a small enterprise also. But we did pay I mean, the government paid them. The the the few Polish and the, and and and persons from Eastern Europe. They didn't expect much money at that time. It was immediately after the war, and, and whatever the Ethiopian government gave them was fiction.

Plus they had free housing. They had we we paid their housing. So, it wasn't much of a problem at that time. But by the 19 sixties seventies, it was difficult to attract foreign teachers into Ethiopia unless you pay them what they would earn in their own country. Wow.

Those the ones that we didn't have much difficulty with difficulty with were Indian teachers, which we had a few of of which we had a few of. And sometimes also some Sudanese, some, you know, wandering Africans, you know, a couple of Sudanese teachers, from the University of Khartoum or from Nigeria would come. But, otherwise, really, unless they were topped up, their salaries were topped up by their national governments, if they are Swedes by the Swedish government, if they're English by the English government or Americans by USAID, it was difficult to pay full salary, for teachers, and and which gave us an impetus in a way. It was motivation for us to Ethiopianize the staff. So we developed a staff development program, which, meant that every from every graduating class, we would take the top 5, 6, sometimes 7 students in every field.

We take them in and as assistant. What did you call them? Teaching assistants. I think that's the same name that they give them here. I think we call them teaching assistants.

And they would, be, you know, helping a teacher or one of the lecturers, assistant lecturer. They would be helping him and so forth. After 2, 3 years as assistant lecturer, depending how well they do, then we we send them overseas for graduate work. They come back, teach a couple of visa, and then send them for PhD. And then they become full fledged, lecturers, assistant professors.

You know? Just the way we will train ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. And, and this scheme of staff development, you know, like, when I joined the university in 1963, the I think the Ethiopian, staff consist I think was about 10, maybe 12% of the total, teaching population.

But by the time the dare came in 1944, the it was more. I mean, it was it was like 60% Ethiopian and 40% foreigner. Wait. Say that again. It was only 10% Ethiopian at the beginning?

Yeah. That's almost none. That's amazing. Yeah. It was very few.

I can I could almost mention them? One one of them being myself. I mean, you know, only 10%. Maximum 12%. I have the figures, somewhere, but but that's about right.

But grew to 60% or even close to 65, 70% by 1974. That's a big jump. Through this staff development scheme that we're making. But it's not just it's also the denominator is getting bigger too. I mean, the number of teachers is also increasing.

Right? Because the student body is increasing. Yes. Yes. They So so the absolute increase is more than fivefold.

That's right. Yeah. I mean, the staff grew. Who do I have the staff numbers here? I I have it somewhere.

I have all of the statistics in some of my files. But, I know the student population at all grew from 1,000 to 66,500. Yeah. And the staffing also grew quite a bit, but I don't have the figures right away. The percentage, I told you, between from 10% to about 60, 70%.

But I don't have the raw figures right away. No. I mean, you can extrapolate. I mean, the student body grew 6 fold. Right?

So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those are I mean, those are fast number. These are numbers sort of like I hate to say this, but Internet startups.

I mean, like, in in this modern era, how how quickly companies grow? These are the kind of numbers that you see now is you could see you guys pre computer. Yeah. This was pre computer. Pre Google.

Yeah. No. We didn't even have, electronics. Exactly. Yeah.

You're doing you're doing with carbon copy. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I just got a copy of my dissertation that was written in, what, 63.

It was by ordinary typewriter. So the copy, no. No. Not, how do you call it? The, the one that they storing at the Makrofit.

Makrofit copies. Yeah. The Makrofit oh, it's very, dilutive kind of thing. I barely read it. So because they're all electric typewriters even there.

Wow. Yeah. At least it's there. I mean, even that's a big thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Many years later. Yeah. So where where where are we now?

We talk we were talking about the I mean, we've been jumping here and there's waiting for any consistent outland. But, it gives the flavor of what, how how much the university grew. The this growth in number, unfortunately, did not match the kind of, Ethiopian nature of the university. I mean, you know, we we were hoping to have an an Ethiopian university that was completely or or or, you know, general you know, not if not completely, at least, closely tied to our culture and our heritage. So we'll have Ethiopian philosophy Ethiopian history, it's of course, in Ethiopian anthropology.

That didn't happen. And the main reason that, we were not able to give, you know, to give extensive program on Ethiopian geography or Ethiopian history or Ethiopian culture, Ethiopian anthropologies. And Japanese. We just didn't have the number of qualified Ethiopians who or or or foreigners for that matter who are in a position to teach this at the college level. Mhmm.

The first real, historians that you can call them by, you know, in historians by international standard, were those who graduated the same time as I did. Those who remember those who were at Harvard and so on. So we were just starting to start courses giving courses in Ethiopian history and Ethiopian culture, but, the but that did not grow. I mean, the Ethiopianization of the indigenization of the teaching courses did not follow hand in hand with the growth in number of the university. This, is something that, that I'm, I always feel sad about, that I don't know how much or could how much better it could have done otherwise.

I mean, it's a hard I mean, you know, the the needs are so large. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But it it started, I mean, but one thing that did happen and and was part of our our meaning, you know, the university leadership, was to make the university as service oriented as possible.

We were really in many ways trying to model ourselves unconsciously, I must say. I don't think anybody would say it would send send it out and out loud. To model it after the land grant colleges, something akin to that. So they told the service oriented university. It wouldn't make we try to shy away from an elitist ivory tower institution, as much as we could.

And to a quite an extent, we we succeeded in that. In the sense that, for instance, in the College of Agriculture, the students went out from their campuses and established cooperatives. You know, they would had cows, all kinds of cows for their own teachings, you know, in the in the animal husbandry department of the College of Agriculture. They used the milk that they get out of that as an and then formed the milk cooperatives, egg cooperatives. Mhmm

And they worked with the farmers in trying to show them rotation of crops so that it was quite integrated with the with the with the farm, farmers of the of the area. And the same with the public health college. I think there was a lot of, intermingling, intermixing with the with the immediate environment in an immediate social, environment. I mean, the nurses that they train the maternity nurses would go on mule back into all very far out into the countryside and help, deliver babies. We had sanitation workers helping, you know, getting the sanitation, DDTs and whatever into the country.

Whenever there was a fear that cholera or some kind of epidemics were was starting. They would they would be the 1st to go there on horseback and so forth. The, school of social work worked very closely with the, underclass. I mean, such as the shoe shiners and and the young women in the cities numerous rail logistics. So there was quite a bit of interaction between the school of social work and and whatever they learned, they were trying to apply it to their immediate environments.

In the heart of education, we had we run numerous in service courses to upgrade teachers, through in during the summer. And the idea was not only to give them summer school so they would get more salaries, but also to give them some kind of light to give them light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, would well, I I when I was dean, I was very keen anxious to make sure that these 2 these teachers in the primary schools that were, fielded in in all parts of the rural, very remote areas. I mean, the teachers have to go all to the tiniest villages in in Begimdir or Gomugafa or or and so forth. Once they're there, there there could be there could it's very easy for them to be forgotten by the Ministry of Education.

Mhmm. Unless and the only, what I would have said, only the main light that they saw at the end of this darkness that they were in was the faculty of education. Because they said, if I manage to go into the summer school and did, take the exam in the faculty of education, perhaps I would get promoted to a higher level, become a school director, or get posted towards closer to a suburb where I I'll have more opportunity. So we work very closely. I mean, in the faculty of education with practicing teachers.

And whenever I was dean went out to visit the schools in the countries or, you know, I mean, they knew me more than perhaps some of the highest officials of the minister of education because we are always close, closely involved. The same with the law faculty. They had evening courses for law enforcement officers, for judges, and police officers to to acquaint them with the newly promulgated laws as well as with the general concept of citizens' rights and, and the no obligations, civic scores kind of thing. So the law faculty worked also, very closely. So that that in that sense, I feel gratified that the college we tried to create was not an ivory tower, but was closely involved itself with the with the with the environment.

I mean, with the Ethiopian people, with the rural people. That's that's something to be Is that is that I mean, besides you, you know, your personal, you know, stamp on that, is that something that comes either out of the university charter and was cautious or is it something about Ethiopian culture which I didn't really perceive? I mean, that a very communal culture. I don't maybe I never really gathered that. It's it's difficult to give it a a cause, I mean, to explain how it happened.

But if I mean, as I said, we were growing eclectically, and we didn't have any pattern to follow. So the nearest pattern, although it was not said out loud and, you know, enunciated loud and clear, was the land grant colleges. You know, remember that a good menu for Ethiopian teachers were trained in America. Mhmm. They had gone to colleges like Iowa, Wisconsin, and and Michigan, and and what have you know you know, Oklahoma, these land grant colleges.

And so that they brought back this experience of of the of of the university working with the pharmacist, consciously or unconsciously grew up, became, an aspiration, became something that we aspire to went to a large a large extent succeeded. So while I was outside, that we didn't have enough Ethiopian content in our programs. Yeah. I'm pleased to say that, we didn't create an ivory tower in in institution. I mean, and in fact, and if you had to pick between the 2 interacting with the people and, you know, and and teaching Ethiopian culture Yeah.

You would choose the former. Right? I mean We had no choice about the previous one, about the Ethiopian culture. We just didn't have the means to Ethiopia. I mean, the rural people learned enough I mean, educated enough, at the university level to teach those courses.

So, you know, we had no choice in that regard. That's how I Yeah. Explain it. So in in this sense, Fenn, our college, the university, Haile Selass University was quite different from the African, from universities in Africa, from the, major African universities that I've always been mentioning in these sessions, Ibadan, Lagos, or or or Ghana, or Sierra Leone. Because they are they are the ones in the east were newer.

I mean, you know, the University of Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, came much later than we did. The the ones that preceded us are mostly in the in West Africa. I didn't know that. Yeah. Nairobi I mean, Tanzania, we helped them establish their college of agriculture.

The college in Ethiopia, Ala Maya, was the one that helped the Morogoro College in in Tanzania to start up. They really sent the the first batch of prospective, teachers for his agricultural college to Alamai, to Ethiopia, to a trainer and and and that's how it started. The same with Kenya. We help them start, their faculties, particularly in engineering and so forth. So, we were ahead of those in the east.

But now, probably, they are well ahead of us, but that wasn't the case in those days. Anyway, in that sense, I mean, our African our our university was an exception in being very closely tied with the community and not being an ivory tiger. An ivory an ivory tower. Yeah. Do you do you can you say I mean, these are somewhat, you know, I mean, you know, these are sort of questions of the university culture and, you know, maybe implicit ethos and maybe some of it is in the charter or not.

How much of this I mean, because so few people were there at the beginning and how much how much of this was, you know, a a a small cohort of people or how much of it was something that's more intangible than that? I mean, something, you know, something that existed all around you. I mean, in other words, were there conversations, you know, where people sort of argued one way or the other and, you know, then people say, no. Let's do it this way or, you know Oh, yeah. People people people kinda just did it all.

This you know? It's a bit of both. I mean, some of it was planned. Some of it was unplanned. But these programs grew from the various faculties.

I mean, the way they were administered, this faculty had its own academic commission. You know, it has a dean and an academic commission. And whenever a course was started or a program was being set up, it had to be approved by its own academic commission. Should I mention that, you know, this faculty council we spoke about as the highest, legislative or policy making body of the university consisted of the dean ex official plus 3 faculty members from each of the colleges. They came to, this Sabbath, the Rasput colon hall, and they met once a month on average.

They were chair to the chairman or the president, and in his absence, the academic vice president. Mhmm. And any program, of of of some magnitude of magnitude would have to be approved by the academic commission at the faculty level Mhmm. Then by the curriculum committee, the standing committee of the faculty council, and the faculty council itself. So it was, it was not an individual, action or an individual decision, but it was a corporate decision, a university decision, so to say.

Interesting. So this is separate from the board. I mean, the board is a higher level. Yeah. Higher level.

Level. But but there was actually sort of a faculty like a legislature in a way. It kinda had to sort of approve Yeah. The major initiatives. Yeah.

I mean, the board never intervened on academic matters. I mean, we would send them by of information, but I don't remember any time they'd they, would say, no. Don't teach this or teach that, or you shouldn't publish this or you shouldn't publish that. No. They just left us.

Really, we were autonomous as as autonomous as, as, you could be. So in terms of academic matters, it was the faculty council, the equivalent of the senate. Now they call it senate, which is another name for the same thing. But but the, but that faculty council, as I said, was an elected body in the sense that each faculty center, as I said, 3 representatives plus its dean. In addition to that, then we added the registrar, the dean of students, the librarian.

These 3 were also ex official members. So this this was the highest academic body in the university. And, it decided on admission. It decided on new courses, on promotion. So all academic matters was under it.

It worked through its standing committees, curriculum committee, admissions committee, student affairs committee, promotions committee, and so forth. And I was very active as a member of that. I mean, I was always a member of the faculty council because as dean, I was ex officio. As vice president, I was ex ex officio. And so I've been there all the time, and and and I checked many of those subcommittees.

How many standing committees at one time or another? So I can tell, I can tell you that this was much a a group decision rather than, the president or the vice president or the dean saying it. So this was one feature that, differentiated the university, IELTS National University from African colleges. This very close link with the rural areas. Another one is the, that I should I think is worth mentioning is the multiple multiple avenues for entry to the university.

Mhmm. I mean, in in most African universities of the time, you you went you one entered the university through, you know, by finishing secondary school and sitting for the examination. And, secondary school leaving the examination usually coming from overseas the way we did, you know, the matriculation from London or whatever or or the Berkeley area if they're in France. This was the case with the with us at the University College, you remember. But as, years went by and and certainly at the highest university, we had a multiple avenue, like, for instance, teachers who had not finished, secondary school as such, but had gone to teacher training college.

But if they have, in addition, taught 10 years, we would give them some examination and admit them into the school of education. Mhmm. Because we we, you know, decided that teaching for 10 years plus certificate they had as a teacher training was sufficient for them to be prepared as a secondary school teacher. So that was a one avenue, so it's summer school. Similarly, those who went to a commercial school, and had worked for another for I forget the number of years, but something like 6, 7, 8 years, in one would have been in in some business, or other would be allowed to go into the business college.

Taking high school graduates with some experience would also go would be allowed to enter now into the the college of technology. They would give them a taste perhaps, and they would interview them then perhaps. I shouldn't say perhaps, but they will certainly give them a test and interview. But they were allowed. In other words, just because you didn't have a school living certificate does does not mean that that's the end of you.

Wow. Which was the case in many African universities. And I think this was quite it's added, I mean, very it's added to the university population, student population, a core of mature students, who and some of them had even children, who are married and children. I mean, in my own faculty, faculty of education, we had quite a few, students who had come through the summer school, who had, who were married and had children. In fact, this is a digression.

I know it's an interesting digression in a way. Because when they came to university, when this when the teachers, you know, left their family in the rural areas and came to the university, we had to think of what their families, will live will will be living on. You know? They had to so we managed to get help from the German government. Wow.

We we persuaded the German ambassador that, you know, for every student they would send to Germany to study, they couldn't, they could support so many, married students in the university. And then sure enough, the money they every year, I think that I think that would help us, give us cash to support as many as 30 married students. Wow. So which would send to their family in the rural areas. It's I mean, this is That's a lifeline.

I mean, that's it. I mean, if if the if the if the breadwinner is, in school, that's the family, you know, So Yeah. This, now, I mean, I shouldn't say this perhaps because this is we're recording it, but it's easier said than done, Phil, because, you know, to send money to someone's family in the rural areas is very tricky. So who they're married too. You know?

I mean, they don't take their husband's wives. So there have been cases where we've been paying the wrong wife. But we soon corrected that, error, and we learned from our, mistakes. Yeah. So we we got, the surrounding teachers and the provision education officers to help us identify who the family was.

Yeah. I guess you find out when the real wife comes to your office. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as long as they're still doing their studies.

Yeah. And that's that's amazing. That's an amazing story. I mean, we could we could pause here, and I I don't know how much of this we covered. Let me let me let me stop for a second...