COVID-19 casts a long shadow over HE rebuilding efforts

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted efforts by South Sudan tertiary education leaders and ministers within the newly-formed South Sudan unity government to restore the country’s universities, many of which were devastated by the years of civil war that may now have ended.

That task was always going to be tough – and the higher education sector has been calling on the government and the international community to sustain their reconstruction efforts. In the meantime, however, the South Sudan government has suspended all classes and lectures in universities and schools on 20 March for at least one month (along with a ban on mass gatherings) to stem the spread of the virus.

As of 30 March, there were no recorded COVID-19 cases in South Sudan, but there are widespread concerns about undetected infections. The United States government has donated US$8 million to South Sudan to fight the coronavirus pandemic and it has reduced by half its staff in the embassy in Juba, the capital.

The South Sudan government has also asked South Sudanese to limit unnecessary human contact and has suspended flights from countries affected by COVID-19, which includes neighbouring Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo and Kenya.

Peace agreement

The effective closure of South Sudan’s universities halts the higher education reconstruction that has taken place following a peace agreement signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during September 2018. This led to the warring parties in South Sudan finally, in February, forming a transitional coalition government, signalling hope that the conflict may end for good.

The African nation, which became independent in 2011, has suffered from a protracted civil war since December 2013. The conflict has killed as many as 380,000 people, according to some estimates, and displaced more than 4 million people out of a population of 12.5 million. The war was triggered when the current president, Salva Kiir, accused his first vice president, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.

Looking beyond the COVID-19 emergency, Thiik Enock, a South Sudanese security consultant and former officer in the South Sudan Police Service, based in Nairobi, Kenya, told University World News: “Just like it is in any war, all institutions especially universities are decimated and brought to their knees; the South Sudan crisis wasn’t different. Now that the war is ebbing, it’s time for reconstruction. We want to see our universities back because this is the real cradle of socio-economic and political development.”

But while the government has yet to formally halt construction projects within South Sudan, ongoing work on higher education institutions is likely to be disrupted.

The country faces the acute risk of dealing with the potential infection of more than 1.5 million people still living away from their homes in South Sudan because of the past conflict, including 200,000 people living in United Nations Protection of Civilians’ sites, according to Human Rights Watch.

But once the virus is defeated, academics will want a return to the progress that has started since peace took hold.

Universities shuttered by conflict

Kachuol Mabil Piok, a political science lecturer in South Sudan’s University of Juba and an analyst on security issues in Sub-Saharan Africa, speaking in his private capacity, recalled how many universities shut their doors as a result of the conflict, although his university – in the country’s capital – stayed open throughout the conflict because the city remained relatively peaceful under government control.

Other public universities fared less well with some transferring staff and resources to Juba during the worst of the civil war, before starting reconstruction of facilities at their home bases.

These included Upper Nile University in Malakal, capital city of South Sudan’s Upper Nile State and the country’s second largest city. The university closed in 2013, was extensively damaged and is currently being rebuilt, with operations having been steadily moved back to its home base since April 2019. Courses including economics, education and public health have been relocated back to the Malakal campus.

Another institutional victim of the conflict was John Garang Memorial University of Science and Technology in Bor, Jonglei state, eastern South Sudan, which closed at the outbreak of the civil war. It is also in the process of being rebuilt and was partially reopened in 2015.

Even the University of Juba, which stayed in operation, was “faced with under-staffing occasioned by most of the dons leaving the country for safety, as well as others who sought fresh pastures with good pay, a situation that has prevailed until today, taking a toll on the quality of the university education,” Kachoul said.

Back in operation

Deng Deng Hoc Yai, who was minister of general education and instruction from 2016 until the formation of the new unity government in February, said two other public universities had – until the COVID-19 shutdown – also restarted operations. These were Bahr El-Ghazal University, in Wau, northwest South Sudan, and Rumbek University of Science and Technology, central South Sudan.

There are also private universities in operation, such as the Catholic University of South Sudan (in Juba and Wau); Stafford International University, in Juba; Star International University, Juba; St Mary’s University, Juba; and the Mary Help College of Nursing and Midwifery, Wau.

Overall, said Yai, “these universities are relatively small, educating approximately 50,000 students [with] 14,000 students pursuing their studies at the largest – Juba University.” He said there were currently 10,000 South Sudanese students studying in higher education institutions abroad.

However, as the conflict has ebbed: “The public universities have been graduating increasing numbers of students; with the quality of the teaching staff improving because of new salaries, which are attracting professors and lecturers to public universities.” This was creating a “ripple effect” delivering a “steady improvement in the quality of education offered", he added.

Resource constraints

That said, University of Juba Vice-Chancellor Professor John Apuruot Akec told University World News that much work needs to be done. Universities in his country are still struggling.

“They are under-resourced in infrastructure, staffing, funding for research and day-to-day operations,” he said.

In addition, the Ministry of General Education and Instruction had yet to develop the capacity to consistently and comprehensively regulate the sector. He said poor infrastructure and low student fees were still posing challenges both for current operations and in creating a sustainable financial basis for South Sudan universities, especially given increasing demand by South Sundanese for university places.

However, the situation had been improving, said Akec, with the government last year increasing annual public university lecturer salaries to the equivalent of US$21,427, up from US$7,100 in 2015. This, Akec explained, had ended the prolific staff turnover and in fact has attracted international scholars to South Sudan. The government had also been able to provide security for staff and students on university campuses.

Looking into the future, Akec said he wants to see more government spending on improving university buildings, facilities and equipment, with universities given more freedom to increase fees, building on existing limited rights. “At the University of Juba, to survive…we had to adjust fees,” he said.

Government spending

He has also called on the government to increase public spending on higher education research and staff training, while continuing to devote more resources to bolster staff salaries – although clearly COVID-19 will drain public resources in the short term.

Ideally, Akec said, higher education funding should be mandated by law, with a student and higher education act guaranteeing a proportion of tax contributions for the sector.

And he wants more international support: “Our government can’t do this alone, they also need development partners' input,” he said.

Kachoul agreed that universities need special government and donor budgets to renovate facilities damaged and destroyed by war, and recommended that universities that transferred resources to Juba during the war move back their reconstructed campuses carefully and steadily.

“Other than the office equipment, the reconstruction of buildings, dormitories, hostels and laboratories, and the development of ICT are critical for these universities. During the conflict, most of their data was lost due to [previous] limited use of ICT,” he said.

Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Yien Oral Lam Tut said ahead of the COVID-19 measures that the government was responding proactively to these needs. “We are on a recovery path and already we have rehabilitated and restored the Upper Nile University and are working on many others including re-establishing or establishing new faculties and centres. Already the University of Juba Cultural Centre is up and running,” he said.

Pre-COVID-19 optimism

“Following our independence in 2011, the appetite for the establishment of institutions of higher learning was high, but insecurity slowed this development and now, with peace, that demand will rise,” he said.

He said he hoped partners such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency would help.

Looking ahead, he said the government has drafted a policy to reform and unify salary structures for university employees, which has been approved in principle, with technical, financial and implementation guidelines being developed.

Since the 2018 peace deal, South Sudan's universities have recruited more than 100 academic staff as part of reforms that would “make our higher education competitive”, he said.

Whether this happens, of course, will depend on what shape the country is in after the COVID-19 pandemic and whether the country and international health officials can keep the disease away from refugee settlements. Only time will tell.