Menase Kifle
13 December 2007
Addis Abeba — Norway's Oslo University last week awarded the Addis Ababa University in what it said was recognition of remarkable results achieved by the University's special needs education, a new field of study financed by the government of Norway.
The special needs education department was launched in 2002 following partnership agreement between the two universities.
The department was designed to offer Degree and Masters Courses for students with disabilities.
134 disabled students in masters and 106 students in the Degree programs have benefited .from this project coordinated by the two universities.
Speaking during the awarding ceremony on the occasion of the closure of the four year program, Norwegian Ambassador to Ethiopia Mr.Jens-Petter Kjemprud said the program symbolized the strengthening bilateral relationship between Norway and Ethiopia.
Academic vice president of the AAU Dr Butte Gotu received the diploma from the hands of the ambassador.
This project was coordinated by Professor Tirussew Teffera and Professor Berit H. Johnson, an Associate Professor for the Special Needs Education Department at the University of Oslo.
Speaking to The Daily Monitor after the ceremony, Berit H. Johnson said the university was particularly pleased with the difference disabled students in the AAU had made for themselves and the university community.
She said despite the closure, the two universities would be on "continuous communication." Mrs. Johnson also said that this program was part of a series of other programs that have been initiated here.
She noted that, under this initiative, there were close to 20 Ethiopian students in Oslo University doing their masters on special needs education, including two other Ethiopian PHD graduates from the same university It was not clear why the university closed the program or if there are resumption plans.
But according to Alemayehu there are high hopes for the future of the department which he said achieved "amazing results" under the financial umbrella of the government.
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