Any development undertaking devoid of education that a country makes cannot successful. That is, education is fundamental to all strivings for development that all countries make. It plays this role by producing qualified, competent, well informed, socially effective citizens that a country needs to work in various sectors that contribute to the country’s overall development. For the effective allocation and utilization of trained man power, people trained in Psychology could help institutions to identify the interests, capabilities and attitudes of young people and direct their training in areas where they could be most productive in accordance with the manpower needs of the country. Moreover, as human beings are the change agents in any development endeavour, it is quite important to study about these change agents either individually or in group.

The field of Psychology is instrumental in realization of this purpose. The department of Psychology at Ambo University was established as one of the six departments under the Institute of Education and Behavioural Sciences in 2004 Ethiopian Academic year with 7 (seven) academic staffs and 44 undergraduate students. In the past ten plus years more than 700 students are graduated in both BA and MA programs from the department. The graduates are working in different regions and sectors on different fields; and many of them are MA & PhD students in Ethiopia and abroad.Currently the department is running one undergraduate program (BA in Psychology) and two graduate programs (MA in Social Psychology, MA in Industrial/Organizational Psychology) with 15 total staff (1 PHD holder, two assistant Professors, 10 Lecturers, and 1 secretary) and 48 undergraduate and graduate students.