Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine (JUCAVM) was established in 1952 as Jimma Agricultural Technical School (JATS) following the agreement signed between the USA and the Imperial Ethiopian Government under the joint affiliation of the Ethiopian Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Oklahoma State University (former Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College) for the period between1952 and 1956. From 1956 to 1968, the school was jointly administered by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and Oklahoma State University. Following the termination of the agreement with Oklahoma State University, the school was under the exclusive administration of the Ethiopian MoA for the period 1968 to 1979 and it was renamed as Jimma Institute of Agriculture (JIA). From 1979 to 1990, the institute was under the administration of the Commission for Higher Education, and the naming was once again tailored to Jimma Junior College of Agriculture (JJCA).
At the end of 1990, the College was affiliated with the Higher Education Main Department (HEMD) and named Jimma College of Agriculture (JCA).In 1994, the college was once again transferred back to the Ethiopian Ministry of Education (MoE). In the year 1999 Jimma College of Agriculture (JCA) amalgamated with Jimma Institute of Health Sciences (JIH) (founded in 1983)as co-founders of Jimma University.
JUCAVM, the co-founder of Jimma University, is dedicated to advancing agricultural development through training, knowledge generation, and service delivery in the country. The college trains high-caliber professionals in broad areas of agriculture and veterinary medicine, both at graduate and undergraduate levels.
The college upholds the values of educational relevance, transparency, social accountability, gender sensitivity, equity, community participation, and empowerment. In line with this, the college works in partnership with training, research, industry, and extension/service institutions locally, nationally, and internationally.
JUCAVM comprises five departments in the fields of agriculture namely, Horticulture and Plant Sciences, Animal Sciences, Natural Resource Management, Agricultural Economics and Extension, Food Science and Postharvest Technology, and School of Veterinary Medicine.
The four different departments and the single school under the college offer a wide variety of training programs both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. These training programs are offered both in regular and continuing and distance education programs. The regular programs are conducted on the campus of the college, whereas the continuing and distance education programs have different forms of delivery including summer/winter programs, in-service, weekend, distance, and on-location programs.
In addition to training (which is linked with the promotion of academic excellence), the college also works on the other pillars of the University at large. These pillars include excellence in research, technology transfer and innovation, excellence in community service and engagement, internationalization and institutional collaboration, and institutional transformation and good governance. Other cross-cutting issues (gender and education, special needs and inclusive education, HIV/AIDS and education, climate change and environment, drug and substance abuse prevention in education) of the University are also parts of the official mandates of the college.
With the strong aspiration and motivation for improving the existing performance in line with the aforementioned pillars, the college is prompted to develop this strategic plan with the active participation of representative members from all departments/schools of the college. The strategic planning team is, therefore, composed of 11-12 members with two academic staff from each department/school. After the finalization of the draft document of the plan by the planning team, it was critically reviewed by the Academic Commission (AC) of the college for further improvement. The strategic plan document is organized into five major sections, which include the background, strategic analysis (where the distinctive past and the desired future situations, the overall policy environment, and the SWOT analysis are addressed), analysis of strategic issues of JUCAVM, guiding statements of JUCAVM, and the summary of the strategic planning (which is the final section where the overall aspects of the plan in connection with the strategic themes are summarized). As this year is the final year for the strategic plan already in implementation, a new five-year strategic plan will be developed for the coming five years (2021-2025).