Trends of higher education enrolment, graduation, and employment in Ethiopia: an empirical analysis

To deal with the dynamic nature of global and socioeconomic conditions, it is critical to rethink the interplay between the efficiency of the higher education system and the employability outcomes of graduates. The purpose of this study was to investigate trends in undergraduate enrolment, graduation, and employment in Ethiopia. It looked at data from the past 15 years of enrolment and graduation and unemployment trends. For enrolment, we used the ARIMA (0, 1, and 0), Holt–Winter, and Simple models. Results showed that enrolment increased dramatically, whereas graduation went the other way, and this pattern is expected to continue. It is expected that higher education enrolment and graduation will continue to rise over the next ten years, while labor market demand will fall. Rethinking competence-based and job-driven education policy formulation, strengthening graduation-labor market alignment, and sustaining development qualification systems were all strongly recommended as ways to improve these trends. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.