A Tribute to Gondar University: Ethiopia’s Enduring Educational Legacy
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By Ethiopian Tribune Reporter
In the ancient city of Gondar, where the castles of emperors still stand as testament to Ethiopia’s storied past, there exists an institution that has quietly served the nation for seven decades the University of Gondar. As this venerable establishment celebrates its 70th anniversary, it behoves us to reflect not merely on its achievements, but on the profound irony of how Ethiopia’s current leadership appears determined to airbrush its imperial educational legacy from history.
Established as the Public Health College in 1954, the University of Gondar is the oldest medical school in Ethiopia, born in the visionary era of Emperor Haile Selassie I. This was no accident of history but part of a deliberate imperial strategy to modernise Ethiopia through education a strategy that current officialdom seems embarrassingly eager to forget.
The emperor’s educational vision was revolutionary for its time. Modern education was introduced by Emperor Menelik II, who first opened the government school named Menelik II School in 1908, but it was Emperor Haile Selassie who opened Teferi Mekonnen School and made hallmark of modern education since 1930, helping to establish the Ministry of Education. As Regent and Negus, Ras Tafari had undertaken the modernisation of Ethiopia on a significant scale, creating schools and universities, and generally began the development of a modern national infrastructure.
The medical college was located in Gondar in 1954 in part because of the malaria epidemic that devastated the region during 1952 and 1953. The college was designed to educate various health care workers in a manner that would allow them to address the particular health needs of rural Ethiopia. Here was forward-thinking policy at its finest establishing medical education not in the capital’s comfort but where it was most desperately needed.
Prince Michael Mekonnen, grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie I, recently reflected on his grandfather’s educational legacy: “His Imperial Majesty understood that education was the cornerstone of national development. He didn’t build universities for prestige he built them to serve the people, particularly those forgotten by geography and circumstance. Gondar University stands as a testament to that vision, one that transformed rural healthcare and continues to save lives seven decades later.”
In a remarkable turn of events that must have caused considerable discomfort in certain ministerial quarters, the University of Gondar’s Senate voted on 31 July 2025 to name its Multipurpose Hall at Maraki Campus the “His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I Hall” in recognition of the late emperor’s “historic and transformative role in establishing the Public Health College and Training Center and in laying the cornerstone for the University’s founding.” The hall was officially unveiled on 6 August 2025, just one day after the conference that so studiously avoided imperial acknowledgement.
One can only imagine the squirming that must have occurred when university officials realised they would be dedicating a hall to the very monarch whose educational contributions their ministerial guests seemed so determined to ignore. The timing is exquisite a university quietly honouring its true founder whilst government ministers pontificate about contemporary achievements as though educational excellence began with their appointments.
Yet at the recent conference held from 4-5 August 2025, one witnessed a masterclass in institutional amnesia. The Ethiopian Herald dutifully reported that attendees included “Education Minister Prof. Berhanu Nega, State Minister for the Higher Education Development Sector Kora Tushune, Deputy Mayor of Gondar City Administration, and Chairperson of the Board of Gondar University Teaching Hospital Debre Yehuala, various university board chairpersons and vice presidents, general directors from the Ministry of Education, university presidents, federal, regional, and city government officials, as well as many other distinguished guests.”
How conveniently sanitised. Not a whisper about Dr Genet Zewde, resplendent in white Ethiopian traditional dress that perfectly complemented her silver-white hair, who was very much present and proudly articulated her government’s contributions during the EPRDF era under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, including the establishment of numerous higher education institutions and universities. One might have expected some acknowledgement of such institutional memory, but that would require a level of intellectual magnanimity that appears beyond Professor Berhanu Nega’s current capacity particularly awkward given his tenuous political position as a token appointment from EZEMA, a party that failed to secure even minority status in parliament, with the professor himself having lost his own electoral bid before being handed his ministerial post as a consolation prize by Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party.
This selective blindness extends far beyond mere oversight it represents a systematic erasure of historical contribution. The university’s own Senate clearly disagrees with such historical revisionism, having formally recognised the emperor’s foundational role just days before the conference. As the University of Gondar celebrates its 70th anniversary alongside the centenary of its Teaching Hospital, one cannot help but marvel at how readily current leadership claims credit for institutions they neither founded nor nurtured in their formative decades.
The emperor’s educational philosophy was remarkably progressive. After World War II, Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie took pains to ‘modernise’ Ethiopia and bolster higher education, despite facing considerable opposition from conservative elements. His commitment was not merely rhetorical but transformational, establishing the very foundations upon which today’s ministers now preen.
Today, Gondar University offers 56 undergraduate and 64 postgraduate programmes, organised under the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, College of Business and Economics, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, College of Social Sciences and Humanities. This expansion represents organic growth from imperial seeds planted in Ethiopia’s educational soil.
The tragedy lies not in celebrating current achievements but in the deliberate amnesia that accompanies such celebrations. When education ministers gather to pontificate about educational excellence whilst studiously avoiding mention of their predecessors’ contributions, they diminish not only historical figures but the very institutions they claim to champion.
Professor Berhanu Nega and his colleagues would do well to remember that institutional greatness is built across generations, not manufactured in ministerial press releases or political patronage appointments. When a former education minister can stand with dignity and enumerate her administration’s concrete contributions to higher education whilst the current incumbent himself a beneficiary of political largesse rather than electoral mandate studiously ignores such achievements, one glimpses the full measure of current leadership’s intellectual poverty. Gondar University’s seven-decade journey from a modest public health college responding to a malaria epidemic to a comprehensive university serving over 23,000 students represents continuity of vision a concept that appears to escape both current leadership’s grasp and their capacity for gracious acknowledgement of predecessors’ work.
Gondar College emphasised preventative medicine and focused on public health (community health) in its training precisely the kind of socially conscious education that Emperor Haile Selassie championed. This was education with purpose, designed not for elite consumption but for national transformation.
As Ethiopia grapples with contemporary challenges in healthcare, education, and development, perhaps its leaders might benefit from studying the imperial model of educational planning visionary, pragmatic, and refreshingly free of political grandstanding. The University of Gondar stands as a living monument to what can be achieved when education policy prioritises national need over political posturing.
The emperor’s educational legacy deserves better than bureaucratic amnesia. Gondar University deserves acknowledgement of its true origins. And Ethiopia’s citizens deserve leaders with sufficient intellectual integrity to recognise the shoulders upon which they stand, even if those shoulders happen to wear imperial robes.
In celebrating Gondar University’s 70 years of service and the Teaching Hospital’s remarkable century of healing, we celebrate not merely institutions but an idea that education can transform nations when guided by vision rather than vanity. The newly christened His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I Hall stands as a testament to the university’s commitment to historical truth, even when government ministers prefer historical fiction. His Imperial Majesty would be proud of what his educational seed has grown to become, and perhaps even more proud that his true contributions are finally receiving the formal recognition they deserve, regardless of contemporary political sensitivities.
