Managing Students’ Diversity in Ethiopian Public Universities: Practices and Challenges

Abstract

This study explored the practice and challenges of students’ diversity management in Ethiopian public universities. A convergent parallel mixed method design was used to guide the study. To this end, stratified random and simple random sampling methods were used to select eight public universities and 458 participants of the study. Furthermore, purposive, availability, and snowball sampling methods were used to draw qualitative research participants. While a modified version of the campus climate for diversity instrument was used to collect the quantitative data, key informant interview and document review were employed as qualitative data gathering tools. Frequencies, means, an independent t-test, and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the quantitative data while the qualitative data was analyzed thematically. Finally, the findings unveiled that the internal diversity-related policy practice, leadership commitment towards diversity promotion, diversity-related co-curricular activities, and curricular activities related to students’ diversity management were rated as good. The study further disclosed a significant perception difference in leadership commitment towards diversity among students of different generations of universities, F (3, 454) =6.034, p=0.000). Moreover, the qualitative finding showed that the absence of well-planned strategies, the deficiency of the curriculum to respond to diversity-related issues, and lack of commitment of university leaders to promote diversity and act immediately during conflicts was mentioned as gaps in managing students’ diversity. Finally, it was recommended that due attention should be given by MoSHE and respective public universities in diversifying the top leadership, academic staff, and student body by putting appropriate strategies in place.