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Polytechnic Institute under the Imperial Government of Ethiopia and the former USSR was established in the year 1963 as Technical High school offering a four-year program. After thirteen years the Institute was upgraded to 'higher education' offering middle level technical training. The Institute, again, was upgraded to 'degree awarding level', offering a five-year Engineering Degree Program in the year 1997.

The institution started the new programs by offering all conventional fields of engineering such as Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science Engineering. In addition, it started also non-conventional fields of technology such as Textile Engineering and Food Technology.

In the year 2000, The "Bahir Dar Polytechnic Institute" merged with "Bahir Dar Pedagogical College" to form the "Bahir Dar University" an institute dedicated for higher education in science, technology, pedagogy, agricultural, social science and humanities. The Polytechnic Institute was thus renamed "Bahir Dar University, Faculty of Engineering" which has an over all objective of training engineers and technologist with Bachelor’s Degree.

As per the statistics available with the Faculty of Engineering, the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering has graduated nearly 1000 graduates with B.Sc. degree during the period 1997– 2007. The Department has gained the necessary expertise to offer higher level engineering training programs over these 10 years and it is the right time to upgrade the Department to a Graduate program offering status. As per the standard norms of any university, a Department which has completed 10 years of successful completion of offering undergraduate programs will be eligible to get upgraded to a Graduate programs offering status

Also, as of recent years, the academic and industrial community has expressed the requirement of graduates of different specializations in Electrical and Communication Engineering with innovative skills to take part in the country’s academic, economic, industrial development. It is believed that this new graduate programs will address the acute shortage of higher level academic staff as well as the demands of industries in terms of design, innovation and research staff and higher level engineering administrative staff.

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The Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering is one of the largest departments in the Faculty of Engineering of Bahir Dar University. The department offers programs leading to B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in the regular program with duration of 4 years; and in continuing program too with duration of 6 years. It also offers a diploma program in Electrical Engineering in continuing program with duration of 5 years.

The department experienced a surge in enrolment of students in the regular as well the continuing program, which reveals the fact that the department offers students not only the excellence in cutting-edge technological knowledge and applications, but also in a multidisciplinary engineering background for the career that our students have planned.

This interest and aspiration in our students motivates the department for dynamic and positive changes in reshaping the department's objectives in education and research. The department also motivates the students to participate in community based extracurricular activities, and to help them contribute in societal problem solving.

The graduates of the Department have profound knowledge in basic science, mathematics, social science besides the major studies of communication systems, power systems, control systems, software design, hardware design and microprocessors.

Electrical Engineering plays an important role in the development of the country. The development of the energy, communication, industrial and commercial sectors need well-qualified Electrical Engineers. Our graduates are working all over the country in a variety of jobs. They work in installation, design, testing, research and sales of electrical devices and systems along with graduates from other universities in our country. Many of them are engaged in Ethiopian Electrical Power Corporation, in Ethiopian Telecommunication, in Ethiopian Airlines and in various other industrial and business organizations.

 

RATIONALE:

The objective of Electrical and Computer Engineering Education up to now was to educate trainable, broad based Electrical, Communication and Computer engineers who can fit in the different applications areas of Electrical engineering after given on job training for about a year. This has been realized through the under-graduate curriculum both earlier and in the new revised curriculum.

The undergraduate program of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department produces Electrical and Computer engineers who have broad knowledge through its five year programs. This training gives the students such a broad background that they can fit in different sections of engineering field such as power generation and transmission, communication, instrumentation, computer system and networks installation and maintenance etc.

But with the rapid development of power and communication sector and the expansion of both public and private engineering institutions in the country, deeper knowledge of various branches of Electrical and Computer engineering is required along with other disciplines to play a leading role in the technological development of a country. Therefore, as a step towards meeting this demand, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering would like to elevate the level of training to M.Sc to produce required Electrical and Computer engineers in the field of power, communication, and control and instrumentation engineering who will have specialized knowledge in these fields.

The requirement for engineers who can engage themselves in academic and industrial sector in fields such as research, development and engineering administration is also being felt. But currently the graduate programs in Electrical and Computer engineering are being offered only at Addis Ababa University. As of now the undergraduate programs in Electrical and Computer engineering is offered at the following Ethiopian universities.

  • Arbaminch University
  • Bahir dar University
  • Jimma University
  • Mekele University
  • Adama University

The number of Electrical and Computer engineering graduates graduating from all Universities per annum is expected to rise to above 1000 shortly. Although not supported by statistical data, it can be generally stated that hundreds of Ethiopians are trained in Electrical and Computer engineering in Eastern Europe, Cuba and India. Number of Electrical and Computer engineers went abroad for specialization after obtaining B.Sc. and obtained M.Sc. and Ph.D. Degree because of not having that opportunity at Ethiopia.

With the increasing number of graduates in Electrical and Computer engineering, it is becoming inevitable that many shall be seeking higher education at graduate and research level. In addition many practicing engineers and teaching staff in the ranks of Graduate Assistants and Assistant Lecturers at the various Universities are seeking for admission into Graduate Programs.

Hence, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Bahir Dar University, was convinced that it is necessary to offer graduate programs in different areas of industrial applications in order to provide opportunity to the eligible under graduate engineers to upgrade them to higher level. In addition, it is the imperative duty of the Bahir Dar University on its’ part to start graduate and research programs during the ongoing process of academic development.

It should be also noted here that the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Bahir Dar University, is working with the Addis Ababa University Technology faculty supported by ECBP has developed a new under graduate curriculum. This curriculum is implemented with the objective of meeting knowledge and skill requirement of Electrical and Computer Engineers. Hence under this ECBP program new infrastructure will be created which can be used for the graduate programs also.

The salient features of the graduate program curriculum are the following;

a) The research based and self learning aspects of education such laboratory/workshop/term papers/graduate/thesis/seminar etc, are included.

b) Electives which focus on specialized application areas are introduced. The advantages of offering electives in each specialization are:

· The students can select specific electives according to the requirement of different areas of employment and his own interest and aptitude;

c) The Department prepared the curriculum mainly based on the needs of the industrial sector and the capacity building of higher educational institutions.

 

The Training Objective of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Program is to provide broad-based education and training in Electrical and Computer Engineering and its applications leading to a Master of Science Degree in Engineering, to enable graduates to meet the challenges of the engineering profession in a rapidly changing environment that exists in a developing country. The specific training objectives can be summarized as follows.

Specific Objectives:

To produce Graduates with full professional competence in different fields of Power Communication, Control & Instrumentation and Computer Engineering who can participate in the national development activities and to this end;

To train manpower for higher education institutions of the country;

To produce qualified experts and managers for industries;

To meet the demands of the industries in terms of training and up grading their engineers and managers.

To provide opportunity for the working community in the field of Power, Communication, Control & Instrumentation and Computer Engineering to upgrade their knowledge to a higher level.

To carry out research in the areas of Power, Communication, Control & Instrumentation and Computer Engineering that are relevant to the needs of the Country;

- To render consultancy services to the community.

- To provide research, development, maintenance skills for products and systems.

- To engage students in high level research through thesis that offers optimal solutions to technical problems in the electrical and computer industry sectors.

- To prepare students for career opportunities in public and private services.