Ministry of Education

Identified Competency Focus Areas and Core Courses for

Ethiopian Higher Education Institutions’ Exit Examination

Program: - Water Resources and Irrigation Engineering in BSc.

July 2022
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
 1. Introduction
A study of Water Resources and Irrigation Engineering is a field of study that deals with
collecting and distributing water where and when it’s needed. The field gives greater emphasis to
irrigation Engineering and drainage systems, river training and flood protection works,
construction of dams and reservoirs for water supply and irrigation purposes as a whole.
Undergraduate studies offer a series of basic engineering and applied courses in the area of water
resources, irrigation and water supply engineering (fluid mechanics, hydraulics, hydrology,
ground water, water supply and wastewater systems, irrigations and drainage, river hydraulics,
sedimentation, river-training works, flood protection etc.). The program also offers Civil-
engineering courses, which includes elements of geo-mechanical engineering, structural
engineering, construction engineering, materials engineering, transportation engineering,
geodesic surveying and geology.

Ensuring quality and relevant education in Higher Education institutions is one of the challenges
that remained to be solved. In a pursuit to rise educational outcomes in terms of quality and
relevance, many countries currently aim to improve accountability in the school system. Many
school systems provide educational outcome information. However, the Exit exam provides
outcome information to be comparable across schools on an external standard.

The primary purpose of the exit exams is to assess students' educational achievement in the
courses in their major area of program study. The exam is supposed to measures the learning
outputs of the program as a whole not the individual courses. Exit exams have been argued to
improve the signaling of educational achievement on the labor market and to increase labor-
market productivity through increased human capital.

The exit exam is intended to ensure all graduates from HEIs have developed adequate mastery of
the core competencies articulated in the respective curricula thereby satisfying the requirements
of the labor market and employability through the nationwide implementation of curriculum-
based exit examination. Moreover, several concerns regarding the scheme of exit exam including
efforts and costs to maintain the process, opposing arguments, exposing potential weakness in
the education system, fear of impeding flexibility within curriculum, quality and reliability of the
employee, ownership, exam administration, and management and cheating will be considered.

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 2. Expected Profile of Graduates
This program is aimed at training manpower required for the realization of the use of country’s
vast water resources potential. Well-qualified Water Resources and Irrigation Engineers will be
produced through this program who can actively be engaged in the planning, design,
development and management of water resources projects. Specifically, the trainees will be
equipped with the knowledge that enables them to execute the following tasks:
 Undertake project identification; pre-feasibility and feasibility studies of water
resources projects;
 Plan water resources projects; and design irrigation, drainage structures and other
related to environmental protection works;
 Prepare complete contract documents for water resources projects like, Irrigation
projects, drainage facilities, water supply projects, and projects which are related with
environmental protection works;
 Plan, design, manage and supervise the construction of Irrigation, drainage structures
and related civil engineering works;
 Plan, design, manage, monitor and evaluate the operation and maintenance of irrigation
and drainage systems;
 Remodeling and rehabilitation of existing water supply, hydraulic and hydropower
systems.

3. Competences and Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the B.Sc. study program, the graduate of B.Sc. degree in Water
Resources and Irrigation Engineering will acquire all the necessary skills and capabilities, which
enable the degree holder to plan, design, construct, operate and manage facilities and structures
for:

 Optimum utilization of available water resources for irrigation, industrial and domestic
water supply systems etc.

 Natural water flow control such as flood control, land drainage etc.

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 The graduate is able to participate and professionally perform engineering services in the
different water resources and irrigation projects phases along the project cycle, including the
following:

 Identification of water resources and irrigation problems of existing infrastructure and

elaboration of technically and economically feasible concepts for their solution:

 On-site surveys, pre feasible and detail designs specifications of irrigation and water
resources projects

 Preparation of bills of quantities and construction documents

 Assistance in the tender process and contract administration

 Construction supervision, control and approval of contractors’ documents and settlement

of claims and disputes

 Operation, management and long-term quality control of water infrastructure

 Training of operational technical staff

The graduates will have the capacity to innovate, transfer technology & entrepreneurship. He/she
can understand the way of creating new business idea, competitiveness contributes to new
business products, and also the entrepreneurship traits and skills needed in entrepreneurship.
Furthermore, the B.Sc. degree in Water Resources and Irrigation Engineering as the first
academic degree may also be the starting point for further academic qualification as for example
in the framework of post-graduate studies in various water related fields such as:
 Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
 Irrigation Engineering and Management
 Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering
 Groundwater Engineering
 Hydraulic and Hydropower Engineering
 Water Supply and Environmental Engineering
 Water Resources Engineering and Management
 Hydro-Informatics
 Hydraulic Engineering and River Basin Development
 Integrated River Basin Management

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  Soil and Water Conservation Engineering
 River Engineering

4. Courses to be Included in the Exam

The study program consists of ten semesters with the following sequence: two freshman
semesters, five basic studies semesters, one internship semester, and two semesters for project-
based studies. The program comprises 17 modules and 68 courses that can equip students with
relevant knowledge, skills and attitude to effectively carry out their future duties and
responsibilities with courses from diverse fields that include mathematics and natural sciences,
field-specific basic sciences, field-specific specialization, non-field specific subjects, and
practice-based studies.

From the curriculum, some major courses and that have direct impact on the study were included
for the selection of the courses. The following table shows the courses to be included in the
exam. The selection of the courses was triggered and directly related to the career of the trainee.

SN Selected Courses for the Exit Exam

1 Hydraulics II
2 Construction Materials and Equipment
3 Open Channel Hydraulics
4 Surface Water Hydrology
5 Groundwater Hydrology
6 Surface Irrigation
7 Pressurized Irrigation
8 Drainage Engineering
9 Dam Engineering -I
10 Dam Engineering -II
11 Irrigation Structures
12 Water Supply Engineering
13 Water Resources Planning and Management
14 River Engineering
15 Construction Planning and Management

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 5. Categorizing Courses in to Themes
This is basically focused on the courses that will be categorized based on the curriculum of the
program as of the following table.

SN Courses’ Theme Selected Courses for the Exit Remarks

Exam
1 Construction Management Construction Planning and
Management
2 Construction Technology Construction Materials and
Equipment
Surface Water Hydrology
3 Engineering Hydrology
Groundwater Hydrology
Hydraulics II
4 Fundamental of Hydraulics
Open Channel Hydraulics

River Engineering
5 Hydraulic Structures Dam Engineering -I
Dam Engineering -II
Surface Irrigation
Irrigation and Drainage Pressurized Irrigation
6 Engineering Drainage Engineering
Irrigation Structures
7 Water Resources Study, Water Resources Planning and
Planning and Management Management
8 Water Supply and Water Supply Engineering
Sanitation Engineering

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 6. Conclusion
Depending up on the importance and rationale of exit examination the following conclusions can
be drawn out;

 Many states use high school exit exams as a means of maintaining graduation standards
across public high schools. In these states, exit exams are required for all public-school
students, and must pass them to earn high school diploma. Therefore, exit examination in
Higher Educations in Ethiopia will be important for gaining their certification and degree.
 It is believed that to bring quality and supportive education, letting of curriculum based
an exit examination in university will bring a change on the quality.
 Exit exam for graduate students will assesses a student's overall understanding of their
educational experience. This helps that the students can easily identify their professional
focus area when they do their career.
 For proper manipulation of the exit exam, establishing independent exit exam
organization like Ministry of Education by online exam administration, awareness
creation before full implementation of exit exam and identifying each stakeholder’s role
are some of the recommendations forwarded.