Overview

Since September 2003, the Arabic language has been offered in the Arabic Unit in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature as a non-credit course to staff and students of AAU. It was established to meet the growing needs and desires of Ethiopian students to learn the Arabic Language.

And since 2005, Arabic is being offered as a minor to regular students of the Institute of Language Studies and social science.

To run this program, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2003 between the Addis Ababa University and Africa Muslims agency, an international NGO working in the areas of development in Ethiopia. By virtue of the agreement, it became possible to begin offering Arabic as a non -credit course at Addis Ababa University.

In 2005, Arabic became a regular minor course owing to the successful operation of the program that attracted increasing number of students virtually from every disciplinary area. The program is intended to enable students utilize Arabic for pursuing their respective professional interests such as journalism, business practice, international relations and academic research. As a result of the encouraging progress in this respect, the Arabic Language will start now to offer Arabic beginning from the coming academic year as a major course under the department of foreign languages and literature.