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The major diversity responsive student service management strategies were analysed under the sub-themes of lodging, catering and multilingual services and co- curricular activities. The discussions under each sub-section provide explanations that answer the first research question and its sub-questions and thus explicate the

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attainment of the first major objective (sees section 1.4 and 1.5) of answering the following questions:

I How do student service management units at the universities implement the multicultural provision of the Ethiopian Education and Training Policy (1994) and Higher Education Proclamation (650/2009)?

 How do the Multicultural Higher Education Policy and implementation strategies of the universities relate to management processes aimed addressing ethnic, linguistic and religious differences amongst students?

 Which of the management strategies of the universities relate to components of cross-border learning experiences?

6.2.1.1 CBLEs in relation to lodging management processes

In section 2.2.3.3.1 it was shown that although the multicultural higher education policy provision was meant to be implemented primarily by the incorporation of Civics and Ethical Education and Communicative English Skills courses into the higher education curriculum, the Student Service individual interviewees as well as the Student Service focus group interview participants reported that their offices have supplemented the implementation of the policy since 2010 by setting in place diversity sensitive lodging provision that aims at addressing ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity hostility which manifested in different forms discussed in section 2.2.3.3.3.

The Student Service participants emphasised that services in the form of lodging, catering, and co-curricular activities comprised strategies that address student diversity issues. They pointed out that the lodging service which has been practised since 2010 was a key diversity sensitive provision than the other welfare services in decreasing inter-group hostilities.

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6.2.1.1.1 The views of individual interview participants on lodging services

Individual interview participants (Director of Student Service, the Dean of Students, the Assistant to the Dean of Student Service, the officer of Public Relations office and the officer of Student Affairs) outlined the diversity management assumptions and major functions underlying the lodging provision as follows:

 Diversity sensitivity is a management process by which the diversity needs of students such as ethnic, linguistic, religious, gender differences, and physical disability are addressed purposefully.

 One of the major functions of the lodging offices was to provide students with a housing service by assigning students to a dorm by name list or ID (identity card) number sequence to randomly group diverse students into a dorm.

 The provision dictated students of different social identities to live together in a dorm in order to foster the social skill of peaceful co-existence with differences. The participants conceptualised social identity as the knowledge of a person that he or she is a member of a group. The argument of the participants provided a verified answer to the first major question and the first sub-question stated above which inquired how the multicultural provisions were located within the management processes.

6.2.1.1.2 The views of Student Service clerks and officers

The Student Service focus group interview participants emphasised that student identity based conflict increased at the campuses since the implementation of the Ethiopian Education and Training Policy (1994). It confirmed information provided in section 2.2.3.3.3. They reported that assigning students to a dorm at random was started in the 2010 and 2011 academic years as a measure to curb the conflicts. One of the focus group interview participants from AAU verified how the scheme was introduced at his institution as follows:

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In the past, dorm assignment was based on students’ preferences. For example, those students who came from Amhara region wanted to have same dorm. From South Nations, Nationalities and Peoples [SNNP] it was the same; and from Oromia, it was the same. They love to be together according to their ethnic backgrounds. … Since last year [2010] what we did was assigning them according to their name list or in alphabetic order to help them adapt to [the cultures of] different ethnic groups ….

The Lodging Service clerks, who took part in the focus group interviews, reported that the scheme was set in place in order to enable students to get opportunities to understand each other better across identity boundaries. They emphasised that since students were assigned to universities from different regional states at random by the Federal Ministry of Education, using the name list sequence for assigning students to dorms, makes the process diversity sensitive. They referred to the randomisation attributed to the name list as a diversity sensitive service management strategy. They argued that students who come together at random and start to live together in a dorm would get opportunities to come to know each other as well as to learn from each other. This would mean that the implementers used the diversity sensitive lodging service provision to facilitate inter-cultural understanding and to widen the perspectives of students (see section 1.2.2). Since ethnicity and language are often intertwined in expressing identity (see sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2), the issues related to either of the two were used to explain students’ inter-group relationships in terms of both of these diversity variables in this section.

One of the Student Service clerks from ASTU elaborated as follows on the social learning opportunities available for students in terms of the diversity sensitive lodging service management strategy:

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With regard to ethnicity, I think, [students] rather live happily when they are from different ethnic backgrounds, because when they get to dorm at night, students from Oromia, Amhara, Tigray, the South [SNNP], etc. … all … live together; they ask each other [about their] lives in different areas. They share experiences. Even though they may not do this deliberately, they learn what Ethiopia looks like.

The above opinion seems to endorse the importance of the educational assumption of establishing healthy relationships amongst dorm mates from different cultural orientations. This educational assumption underpins the view that constructive interaction among different students would strengthen relationships and would enable students to avoid stereotyping and being prejudiced, characteristics which they might have had before they came involved in interaction (see sections 3.6.2 and 4.3.3.1). The participant quoted above seems to endorse that student inter-group hostilities have decreased as a result of the operation of the diversity sensitive lodging strategy.

The participants claimed that, as a result of communal life which is supported by living together, students obtain more opportunities for subconsciously gaining a better understanding of each other. They added that students were assigned to dorms not only by following the alphabetic order on name lists but also by students’ field of study. The participants argued that this would enable them to help each other with academic activities, not only by sharing learning resources, handouts, but also by sharing cultural views which relate to assignments which, in turn, would give expression to CBLEs. They emphasised that students who learn the same discipline and lodge together would partake in discourses and develop positive social relationships. These collective experiences, according to them, are signifying CBLEs as discussed in section 4.3.4.1.