Saint Mary's University College is one of the pioneer private higher education institutions in Ethiopia. Its main campus is in Addis Ababa with over 100 distance education branches in other parts of the country. The university college offers training in the departments of accounting, computer science, secretarial science, law, languages, social science, marketing, management, education, mathematics and natural science. St. Mary's was established as a College in 1998 under St. Mary's General Educational Development PLC. It evolved from St. Mary Language School, which was established in 1989 in Addis Ababa. The language school was upgraded to a language center and then developed into a private higher education institute. Over the last ten years St. Mary's has shown a remarkable growth imprinting its mark on the Ethiopian higher education scene. It has graduated thousands of students in both regular and distance education programs. It has managed to organise international conferences on private higher education for 7 years in a row.