Academic Senate Decision and Deliberation Communication in the Context of the Bologna Process: The Case of Ethiopian Public Universities

Abstract

This paper reports results of a review of Ethiopian universities’ Senate governance documents: Senate legislation of public universities and the Ethiopian Higher Education Proclamation of 2009, in light of the Bologna Process. The result revealed that Ethiopian public universities were categorised as hierarchal (top-down) in terms of Senate legislation provision as legal documents vested power in University Presidents. In contrast, they were categorised as having collegial decision-making approaches because the participation of representatives of academic staff and students have been mandated as members of Academic Senate decision-making. This review finds there is a tension in the Senate legal documents between the decision-making power of university top management and the mandated representatives in Senates. Understanding the concept of governance and governmentality could assist to revise the Senate documents by exploring the techniques that universities employ to govern their affairs, which is the next emphasis of this paper.