ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the profile and perspectives of Ethiopian students on the relevance and significance of their international education on subsequent employment opportunities. It identifies the profiles and trajectories of international students of Ethiopian origin. The chapter analyses the significance of an international study experience on the future employment of graduates. Ethiopia's higher education institutions produce more than 160,000 graduates a year and many find it a challenge to get a job. International education creates opportunities for graduates to develop marketable skills to which they may have been less exposed, given their background. Discourses around employability are abuzz as institutional, national, regional and international organisations are frantically gearing up to respond to the ominous realities of youth bulge, “mass” enrolment, and graduate unemployment. Although scarcely documented, Ethiopia's experience of sending students to study abroad is closely connected with the country's relations with the West, which goes as far back as the Medieval period.
