Background of the Program

The Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) program is one of the four programs within the College of Electrical Engineering and Computing at Adama Science and Technology University (ASTU). The College was formed when the former School of Engineering and Information Technologies was restructured into three separate colleges. This reorganization took place after the institution was renamed Adama Science and Technology University by the Council of Ministers in May 2011, and its governance was shifted from the Ministry of Education (MoE) to the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST). The change aimed to strengthen ASTU’s role as Ethiopia’s premier Center of Excellence in Science and Technology.

The origins of the current ECE program can be traced back to the Electrical/Electronic Technology Program at the former Nazareth Technical College (NTC), established in 1993. Over time, the program evolved through several academic transformations—progressing from its early form at NTC to the Electrical Engineering degree program, later to the Electrical and Computer Engineering program, and finally adopting its current name as the Electronics and Communication Engineering program under ASTU’s new direction.

In line with ASTU’s initiative to implement outcome-based education, all programs revised their curricula in accordance with ABET accreditation standards. The ECE program formed a curriculum committee to lead this revision, and the updated curriculum was officially approved in March 2021. Since then, notable accomplishments include defining and publishing Program Educational Objectives (PEOs), adapting and publishing Student Outcomes (SOs), mapping ASTU’s mission to PEOs, aligning PEOs with SOs, and linking SOs to Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs). Further achievements involve the preparation of detailed course syllabus, engagement with an Industry Advisory Panel (IAP), identification of human and physical resources, compilation of course portfolios, and the evaluation of CLOs and interim SOs.