Government To Spearhead Reforms In Public, Private Universities

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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While addressing the issue of mushrooming private universities without proper credentials, Dr. Adwok said the situation is complex because there are senior officials in the education system supporting these foreigners establishing these universities because they are financially benefiting.

“This stage in which we are ‘primitive accumulation of capital’ is a very terrible thing and you see it all over,” he continued.

“These are not universities; these are people who are conning South Sudanese because they are exploiting the thirst for university education among our citizens. The students they are teaching are not people who have gone to school, don’t be surprised to hear that they go to learn how to read and write in the universities.” 

“With the law now in our hands, we will be able to close them down, some proprietors may end up in jail because they have being cheating our people,” the minister said.

The Ministry has commissioned a study to look into public universities: University of Juba, Upper Nile, Bahr El Ghazal, Rumbek and Dr. John Garang Memorial Science and Technology to see whether their programs are appealing. 

“We are going to use the report to make a very radical decision to either close some of them or amalgamate or close some of the courses, because we are talking of quality education,”   Dr. Adwok expounded.

The education system is linked together throughout the world with the International System of Accreditation and Evaluation controlled by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “So, if you come with a Certificate, Degree or PHD from any of these universities which are not endorsed by the ministry of education it will not be valued even on the paper in which it is written on,” he warned the public.

Universities in South Sudan have dilapidated physical structures lacking adequate and technical academic foundations. They require complete revolution to bring them to the standards of any university education in the world.

The Ministry of Higher Education has been struggling to repatriate its universities from Khartoum but due to accommodation issues, most of their assets were impounded, there are more than 7, 000 South Sudanese students still in Khartoum. 

This year the ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Sudan. The MoU helps South Sudanese students to continue learn in Khartoum and pay tuition as Sudanese nationals not as foreign students. The Khartoum government has also offered scholarship for 100 students for four years.