SOUTH SUDAN: The role of universities in a new nation

There are nine public and 16 private universities in South Sudan, which will gain independence from Sudan in July. Of the nine public universities, only five are functioning while the remaining four are newly instituted and have neither the infrastructure nor the capacity to admit students in the near future.

Between them, the functioning five southern universities host more than 25,000 regular students, about 18,000 of whom study at the University of Juba in the new nation's capital. Among the total student population, approximately 12,000 are from northern Sudan.

Moreover, there are about 840 north Sudanese academics in the five southern universities, of whom 450 are based at the University of Juba, where they form 73% of the estimated 620 academic staff headcount. Nearly 900 northerners are employed in administrative, technical, and support roles.

In the majority of colleges and schools in southern universities, the number of northern academics average 65%. In specialist institutions such as veterinary and medical colleges, the percentage of northern academics is higher and may exceed 90% or reach 100%.

On the other hand, the number of south Sudanese students studying in northern universities is 33,000. About 5,000 of them are studying at bachelor level, 8,000 are studying for an intermediate diploma and 20,000 are registered for postgraduate and distance education programmes.

In South Sudan, about 30,000 students are sitting university entrance exams this year and an estimated 30,000 others are taking the exams in the north. Add to this approximately 8,000 students sitting equivalent university entrance exams in East Africa and the figure soars to around 70,000 students who will be looking for university places in autumn 2011.

In the light of the recent return from the north of southern universities, which had relocated at the height of the Africa's longest-running civil war, and the reluctance of the great majority of northern academics and students to relocate, it will be a great challenge as to how these universities will continue to function.

Without political will, clear vision and commitment of resources, higher education in South Sudan may collapse in the first five years of transition to independence.

So what needs to be done?

Given the technological advances that occurred in the 20th Century and the ascendency of globalisation in the 21st Century, for any nation to compete in the global marketplace it needs to produce a skilled and educated workforce at a faster rate than can be provided by an elitist system of higher education.

This necessitates a mass higher education strategy. Without this African nations, South Sudan included, will continue to see economic stagnation or even decline while the rest of the world marches ahead on the path of prosperity. A new vision is needed for higher education.

Until 1989, Sudan was running an elitist system of higher education that was inherited from a colonial administration. By elitist higher education I mean that there were very few places available at university for a select group of very bright students.

Every year more than 100,000 students sat for Sudan school certificates and only a tiny fraction of them (some 3,000 or less than 1%) were offered places by the three main public universities and polytechnics and training institutes (Khartoum, Gezira and Juba). The few who made it to these universities were well taken care of and enjoyed free tuition and accommodation. Society treated them with reverence and respect.

The bulk of those who failed to get places internally were absorbed by the University of Cairo in Khartoum and Egyptian universities.

Deregulation policies imposed by the World Bank and IMF's structural adjustment programme in the 1980s led to the privatisation of higher education and the mushrooming of private higher education in Africa. The policy turned higher education into a tradable commodity. Because funding in public higher education was reduced by African governments, private higher education moved in to meet demand.

Clearly, therefore, there is both a demand and a need for a higher number of university places.

As a society of educators, scholars and researchers, South Sudan university academics can do much to help the government of South Sudan pursue objective and informed policies and strategies that will guarantee the delivery of optimal outcomes in the shortest time possible and at a reasonable cost.

Like their counterparts worldwide, South Sudanese academics and researchers can contribute massively to the realisation of sustainable development, poverty reduction and good governance. They can do this in a myriad of ways that include:

* Providing expert advice to the government and businesses in order to reduce reliance on foreign expertise, which is expensive and unsustainable in the long term.
* Producing the human capital needed to run public institutions and manage the national economy.
* Conducting research that facilitates the formulation of successful government policies and developmental strategies.
* Analysing the government's policies in order to improve decision-making.

But how can expansion be funded?

Some suggestions include: increasing the budget allocation to universities; creating a petroleum education fund to finance education infrastructure; encouraging international oil companies doing business in South Sudan to contribute to educational infrastructure development as a condition for acquiring an operation licence; full or partial recovery of the cost of tuition by offering student loans from a student loan fund set up by the government, with more loans provided for students of science and technology; and the establishment of university business enterprises to help meet operating and running costs and provide employment opportunities to the communities they serve.

To raise the quality of higher education, salaries must rise to attract the best academics, standards must be raised in primary and secondary education and we must encourage our teaching and support staff to take up any opportunities for postgraduate studies in developed countries.

The 21st Century economy is being shaped by new technologies, new means of communication, and new social and economic phenomena such as the internet, genetic engineering, globalisation, nanotechnology, the spread of consumerism to new corners of the world, the rise of China, Brazil and India as new global economic superpowers, the threat to the earth's environment and resources in the form of environmental change induced by global warming, and dwindling energy and drinking water resources. All of these represent great challenges for today's universities.

In the new brave world of Twitter and Facebook, there will be few jobs-for-life and many graduates will have to operate as independent self-employed knowledge workers.

The borders between nation states will increasingly become blurred, paving the way for a free flow of skilled workers, talents, intellectual property and capital. Many graduates will face stiff competition at home from a roaming global knowledge workforce that is highly skilled, flexible and willing to do the jobs these graduates will be aiming for, faster, better and at a lower cost.

The new breed of university students will have to be ready and equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge, which will not be acquired solely by attending lectures or going to the library.

Universities will need to be responsive to the demands of the job market and the challenges of globalisation, and meet the needs of different types of learners such as professional lifelong learners, part-time learners, postgraduates, distance education learners, housewives and those with disabilities or special needs, as well as traditional campus learners by using a different array of learning techniques tailored to the needs of the individual student.

* Dr John Apuruot Akec is Vice-chancellor of the newly established University of Northern Bahr-El-Ghazel in Sudan, and chair of Academics and Researchers Forum for Development, an academic-led think-tank and advocacy group in South Sudan.

* This is an edited version of a public lecture, "The Role of the University in Nation-building", delivered by Dr John Apuruot Akec at the University of Juba Centre for Peace and Development and the Rift Valley Institute on 3 June.