The College of Natural Sciences is the recent name given to the former Faculty of Education with some basic re-organization in departmental composition and future direction as of July, 2009. The Faculty of Education used to train professional teachers in different fields of study (Afan Oromo, Amharic, Biology, Chemistry, English, History, Geography and Environmental Studies, Mathematics, Pedagogy, Physics and Sport Sciences) in regular, extension, and/or summer programs. As of July, 2009, however, the Faculty of Education was re-structured into Colleges of Natural Sciences and Social Sciences & Law. Currently, the College of Natural Sciences encompasses seven functional departments including the departments of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Statistics, and Sport Sciences.
These departments train professionals both in applied fields (regular program), and teaching (the summer program), with the exception of the Departments of Statistics and Information Science which currently does not give training in the summer in service program. The last batch of undergraduate regular students trained for teaching at secondary schools graduated in the 2009/10 Academic Year. Besides training applied science professionals in the regular program and partly in the summer at the undergraduate level, the college has already launched postgraduate programs in the fields of Biology (Applied Microbiology, Botanical Sciences and Ecology & Systematic Zoology), Chemistry, Biostatistics, Mathematics, Information & Knowledge Management, and Electronic & Digital Resource Management. The curriculum for PhD in Applied Microbiology is already endorsed and the program hosts students as of February, 2012.