Ethiopia Masters Program
Bridges of Hope is partnering with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to create a Masters level program that provides a foundation for Holistic Community Development in the country as well as being the first-ever Graduate Program for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
In July 2012 we celebrated the first graduating class of 23 Orthodox professors and priests. They graduated with a degree in Community Development and Advanced Leadership. The second group of M.A. students will begin in November 2012. The long range goal is to have PhD level graduates that will be able to equip students for generations to come! It is the desire of the graduates to equip all 500,000 of the Orthodox clergy in Orthodox Community Health Education (OCHE) so that they can bring holistic community development to every corner of Ethiopia!
If you would like to help support the masters program, click HERE and select Ethiopia as your designation from the drop down menu.
If you are interested in teaching, we are looking for Seminary Professors at the Doctoral level to teach one-week intensives in Ethiopia.
ETHIOPIAN EDUCATIONAL HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE
Christianity was introduced as the official religion of the state in 330 A.D after St. Frumentius Abba Selama Kessate Berhan was consecrated as the first bishop of Ethiopia from Alexandria. Church education has served as the main source of training for civil servants, judges, governors, scribes, treasures and general administrators ever since.
Theological education has forcefully demonstrated its ability to change and induce change and progress in the church in Ethiopia. Around us the scope and speed of social change have produced knowledge-based societies where education and research act as engines to progress and development. Given the dynamic changes taking place in the world today and introductions of new values into these societies, its all the more critical that higher education and theological education anchor us to Biblical truth, stretch us to minister into an ever more complex world, and enable us to disseminate the Word of God to all humankind. With that, those receiving a higher education should in the process benefit from easier access to intensive training, resources, and new skills for the purpose of both ministry and employment.
On a comparative basis, universities in Africa play a more significant role in national development than may be the case with other universities around the world. In developing countries such as Ethiopia, trained personnel are in short supply and funds for training and hiring professionals are insufficient. Add in the rapid changes in global labor markets and the deficiencies become all the more pronounced. As a result, professional skills need to be upgraded to cope with the extra volume of work created by remarkable socio-economic development across Ethiopia. Today, tremendous state efforts are underway to make the higher education institutions responsive to the development needed by the country as a whole and by the church. The extent of the impact of state efforts remains to be seen, but we shouldn’t be surprised when the church plays an even more significant role ahead.