Educational centers help realize technology dreams among enthusiastic Ethiopians

ADDIS ABABA－Habtamu Sisay, a young automotive engineering instructor at a public technical and vocational training college in Ethiopia, aspires to play a useful role in advancing his country's mechanical and robotics technologies.

Sisay, now pursuing his master's degree in automotive engineering at Ethiopian Technical University in the country's capital Addis Ababa, hopes to further broaden his education. However, his aspirations have remained virtually impossible due to a lack of well-equipped facilities.

"Despite recent improvements in terms of access to modern facilities, it is very difficult to engage in sophisticated mechanical and robotics technologies in particular due to the lack of such facilities in our country," Sisay told Xinhua News Agency.

But the recently launched Chinese-built Ethiopian Luban Workshop has become an important facility to bridge the gap as it offers high-end technical skills training to help college students meet requirements of the emerging global market.

The workshop facility, which was launched last month inside the premises of ETU, was established by the Chinese Tianjin University of Technology and Education under the guidance of the Ministry of Education of China.

The workshop will serve as a center of excellence across four major areas－industrial sensor technology, mechatronics technology, industrial control technology and industrial robotics technology.

Sisay was impressed after seeing the world-class technologies installed inside the workshop, including state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology.

"With the launch of the Luban Workshop, we will be able to directly engage in practical classes with the help of the modern machinery," he added.

The workshop mainly focuses on mechatronics training, which is a combination of different disciplines such as mechanical, electrical, information technology as well as artificial intelligence and robotics.

"These technologies are emerging technologies in the world. They are advanced and are very important for the industrialization agenda of our country," Teshale Berecha, president of ETU, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Berecha said the facility will accommodate about 150 students at a time, with the ability to train different batches of students every year.

During the Ethiopian Luban Workshop launch ceremony last month, workshop training books, teaching materials and standards of Luban Workshop were handed over to Ethiopian participants.

Since Africa's first Luban Workshop was launched in Djibouti in March 2019, a number of African countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda have launched world-class Luban Workshops with the aim of providing quality vocational training to local people, youth in particular.