College of Education Brief Overview

The College of Education is one of the well-established colleges of Bahir Dar University, which was evolved from the former College named Academy of Pedagogy. The then Academy of Pedagogy, was established in 1972, by the tripartite agreement of the Imperial Government Ministry of Education and Fine Arts, in collaboration with UNESCO and UNDP. According to the UNDP, UNESCO and Ethiopian Ministry of Education and Fine Arts project document, the basic proposals included that an institute for the education of primary teacher-educators is established at Bahir Dar under the leadership of the MoE and was called the Ethiopian Academy of Pedagogy.

The Academy, therefore, started to train in October 1973 when the Academy of Pedagogy was inaugurated under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Fine Arts. In the following year (1974), the TTI admitted 177 students for the first time. Its general purpose was, thus, to train multipurpose professionals capable of adopting primary education to rural life and rural development. Therefore, the major impetus to the inception of the Academy of pedagogy was quality of education, shortage of teacher educators and Ethiopianization of the staff of the TTIs.

Moreover, a junior science college under Higher Education Commission was established in 1978 with its own dean. In 1979, the TTI and the junior science college become under the administration of the dean of the Academy. In 1980, the Academy brought under Addis Ababa University and subsequently changed its structure having a dean, a vice dean and administrator; and its name changed to Bahir Dar Teachers College towards the end of the same year. Latter, in 1995, the Bahir Dar Teachers College became independent of Addis Ababa University. 

Later in 1977/8, the first-course catalog containing the four-year degree program was produced, which included Amharic, English, Geography, and Mathematics as minor areas of study till 1999. After making training needs assessment all over the country, the major-minor training was changed into composite major training in 2000. Since then, the Bahir Dar College of Education started to provide a Composite Major bachelor’s degree in Pedagogical Sciences and in one of the pre-existing subject areas. On the other hand the diploma programs in the natural sciences become degree programs in 1996.

As a consequence of the decision of the Council of Ministers (Regulation No. 60/1999), when Bahir Dar University was established in 2000, the College of Education becomes Faculty of Education. And, the department of Pedagogical Sciences, one of the departments of the Faculty of Education, conducted an extensive needs assessment on the availability of graduates who could work in different areas of the education sector. The needs assessment result revealed that there is a high scarcity of adequately trained individuals who could work as School Psychologists, Special Needs Experts, Adult Educators and Community Developers, Educational Planners and Administrators and Curriculum Experts in different institutions and at different levels of government structures. Thus, such programs were launched within the Department of Pedagogical Sciences.

Furthermore, since 2005, the department has launched a Master’s degree program in fields of Educational Psychology, Curriculum Studies, Educational Leadership, Educational Planning and Management, and Principalship. In 2008, the Department of Pedagogical Sciences has been upgraded from department to Faculty level with its name the Faculty of Education and Behavioral Sciences (CEBS). And the five programs became independent departments. In 2024 , it become promoted to the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences

In December 2022, the Bahir Dar University senate decided that the College of Education to be semi-autonomous. Consequently, the scattered teacher education programs were brought together and formed the school of Teacher Education in 2024. Moreover, the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences become the School of Educational Science. That is, the College of Education formally started as a semi-autonomous College in February 2024 consisting of the two schools; School of Educational Sciences and School of Teacher Education. Now, the College is working aggressively to establish more schools to respond to the needs of high schools having teachers in new subjects including but not limited to ICT and Economics. It has developed a 5 years strategic plan to effectively respond to the needs of the country in education.