For Rift Valley University, hereafter, RVU Twenty Four years of service in the Ethiopian Higher Education and Training has been not only challenging but also successful journey in the history of our country’s private higher education. Over these more than two decades journey in the sector, we have educated and trained hundreds of thousands of our citizens as well as foreigners who have had either no access to public Higher Learning Institutions or have aspiration to diversify one’s academic career.

The idea of establishing a Higher Education Institution capacitated with academic excellence in Ethiopia was associated with the notion of privatization of the sector in the country, and is envisaged by people who had the vision of having trained human power with both academic and vocational fields. This thought has originated from the need to have institutions for educating men and women in concepts, values, and the skills that lead to success in life, while helping them prepare for business, leadership, health and Engineering and Technology sectors for worthwhile service to humanity. In short, for Rift Valley College as a pioneer private college, running higher education in Ethiopia was just like embarking on a grand adventure.

Rift Valley University perceives that delivering quality education to the society plays immense roles in boosting the economic development endeavors of the country. It is believed that those who are trained in this realm can play leading roles in the now upcoming direction of what is called building middle level income nation in the coming two decades. This direction is supposed to emancipate the country from the long-prevailing dependency syndrome. Consequently, ‘Rift Valley College’ now ‘Rift Valley University” was conceived by five founders in Adama town of East Shawa Zone, Oromia National Regional State in October 2000 G.C., foreseeing the core values: leadership, service, commitment, integrity, excellence, and innovation parallel to the nation’s development goals. After securing its legal personality, as given above, the then college strongly worked on the accreditation processes of its training and education programs from all regulatory bodies, and managed to get full accreditation from The Ethiopian Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency/HERQA/. Taking its flourishing capacity and quality service into account, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education, in collaboration with HERQA, granted RVUC the status of a full-fledged University in August, 2014. This was not an easy task and a simple success story for the university. The two regulatory bodies had conducted rigorous evaluation of the systems of the institution, physical facilities and learning resources of its campuses and faculties to come to decision of such states change.

Rift Valley University – a Private Higher Education Institution- was founded with a purpose of producing competent, ethical and skilled manpower without making any distinction between people of different ethnic, religious, social, economic and political backgrounds. It aspires to serve the community as a whole in equipping graduates with knowledge and skills in various contexts.