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Special Report 203 February 2008

Special Report

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions .

Contents 

Introduction 2

Background: Education, Identity, and the Legacy of xx 

Colonialism 2

The New South 3

Islamists and the Education Revolution 4

Controlling Students and Teaching Staff 5

Unintended Consequences 6

Unprepared for Peace 7

The Situation Now 8

Breathing Life Back into the Academy 9

Recommendations 10

About the Report

This report examines the role played by Sudanese universities 

in the country’s social and political transformation, past and 

present. Students and faculty there have historically served 

as vital voices for political change and community and 

international engagement, but recent educational policies 

have severely limited their voices. This report describes these 

recent policies and their effects and makes recommendations 

for changes aimed at recovering and expanding the traditional 

productive role of higher education in Sudan.

Linda S. Bishai is a senior program officer in the United 

States Institute of Peace’s Education and Training 

Center–International Programs Division. She has developed 

and implemented peace and conflict-resolution programs for 

Sudanese faculty, students, and civil-society organizations.

 

E d u c a t i o n a n d C o n f l i c t

Linda S. Bishai

Sudanese Universities 

as Sites of Social 

Transformation

Summary

•	 Education is an important resource for any country, but it is especially valuable in 

spreading the values that transform a wartime society into one with a culture of peace.

•	 Some of the structural inequities besetting the educational system in Sudan today 

stem from the colonial period and policies set during the early days of independence.

•	 Efforts to unify the country through an Arabic national curriculum caused resentment 

and alienation in the non-Arab communities and exacerbated civil conflicts.

•	 Sudanese universities have historically been the incubators of political change in 

Sudan, and student unions in particular have retained a tradition of vibrant—and 

sometimes violent—political activity.

•	 The education revolution implemented by the current regime in the 1990s overextended Sudanese universities, resulting in an extreme teacher deficit and the degradation of university resources and degrees.

•	 Various additional policies had the effect of intimidating university students and 

teachers, changing the atmosphere on campuses and leading to a nonreflective focus 

on exam results and to little intellectual exchange.

•	 In the interim period between the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement 

(CPA) and the general election, a new openness allowed universities to begin to 

revive their historical intellectual traditions. This openness will be vital for securing 

peace with the South and for eventually reconciling Darfur and the East.

•	 A productive model has been illustrated by efforts to engage Sudanese universities 

with their local communities as sites for the development and sharing of public information, culture, and the acceptance of difference.

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org
•	 The international community should advocate creative collaboration, research, and 

teaching exchanges both to and from Sudan, encourage international conferences 

involving Sudanese students and faculty, and pay active attention to restoring Sudanese libraries and research facilities.

•	 Sudanese education officials, university faculty, and civil-society organizations should 

work together to counter four key educational problems: the lack of exposure to critical thinking and research skills; the lack of vibrant extracurricular life; the alienation 

of universities from their local communities; and the recurring pattern of violent 

student activism. 

Introduction

Education is an obviously valuable resource for any nation, but it is particularly so for 

developing countries and those hoping to escape the cycle of violence and despotism 

that plagues much of Africa. In the case of Sudan, the history of its educational system 

mirrors the story of the country’s painful transition to independence, its violent attempts 

to forge a common national identity, and its decades of war and military rule. Sadly, this 

history is also a story of missed opportunity, inequitable policies, and a self-reinforcing 

tendency to manipulate higher education as a proxy for a real political process. This report 

briefly describes the history of Sudanese higher education and the policies of the current 

regime in the context of the role universities have traditionally served in Sudan as proving grounds for political dissent. There are now efforts to resurrect the traditional role of 

the university in the wake of the CPA, which ended the long civil war between the central 

government and Southern Sudan. This complex agreement opened a delicate and critical 

window of opportunity for Sudan to emerge as a strong, viable, and peaceful democracy.

Background: Education, Identity, and the Legacy of Colonialism

Sudan’s educational disparities today reflect the distinct policies pursued by British governors during the period of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium (1899–1955). The North and 

the South of the country were administered separately, with the curriculum of the North 

taking place in Arabic and reflecting its Islamic heritage. Schools in the South were administered entirely by missionaries and thus reflected an English-language course of study. 

British colonial administrators appeared to believe that the people of the South—isolated 

from the city of Khartoum by a seemingly impenetrable marshy portion of the Nile called 

the Sudd—were so backward that education was not worth the investment and would 

only do irreparable damage to traditional social structures. Access even to the missionary 

schools was uneven and short, leaving the non-Muslim Southern population marginalized 

from the Northern Sudanese not only by their differing creeds but also by their lack of 

trained and educated local administrators who could represent Southern interests in the 

capital. When Sudan gained its independence in 1956, there was not a single university in 

the entire South. Even today, due to war and displacement, the literacy rates for Southerners are extremely low, with fewer than half of all school-age children attending school and 

the great majority of those children attending for just a couple of years.

The British presence in the North of the country was markedly different. The city 

of Khartoum had an educated and wealthy elite. Already privileged by living in the 

country’s political and economic center, these elites were educated and integrated into 

the civil service. Gordon Memorial College—which would later become the University of 

Khartoum—was founded in 1902 to help train Northern elites. The students of Gordon 

College were drawn primarily from a handful of powerful, mainly Muslim, riverain tribal 

groups and were meant to replace expensive expatriate administrators. Ironically, this 

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote post-conflict peacebuilding, and increase conflictmanagement tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, 

D.C. • María Otero (Vice Chairman), President, ACCION International, Boston, Mass. • Holly J. Burkhalter, Vice President, 

Government Affairs, International Justice Mission, Washington, D.C. • Anne H. Cahn, Former Scholar in Residence, 

American University, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. Crocker, 

James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of 

Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 

• Laurie S. Fulton, Partner, Williams and Connolly, Washington, D.C. • Charles Horner, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, 

Washington, D.C. • Kathleen Martinez, Executive Director, 

World Institute on Disability • George E. Moose, Adjunct 

Professor of Practice, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George 

Mason University, Fairfax, Va. • Ron Silver, Actor, Producer, 

Director, Primparous Productions, Inc. • Judy Van Rest, 

Executive Vice President, International Republican Institute, 

Washington, D.C. 

Members ex officio

Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State • Robert M. Gates, 

Secretary of Defense • Richard H. Solomon, President, United 

States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) • Frances C. Wilson, 

Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps; President, National 

Defense University.

There are now efforts to resurrect 

the traditional role of the university 

in the wake of the Comprehensive 

Peace Agreement, which ended the 

long civil war between the central 

government and Southern Sudan.
apparently sensible policy sowed the seeds of Sudanese nationalism as graduates of 

Gordon College mastered the modern system and visualized themselves as natural leaders to advance Sudan’s national cause. Furthermore, it was the training of these elites 

that gave them—so unlike their compatriots who did not have access to resources and 

education—a sense of Sudanese, as opposed to tribal, identity. However, these graduates who wanted to be identified as Sudanese had a conception of Sudan that reflected 

their own Arabized and Islamicized culture. As the powerful ruling class of the nation, 

their conception of the nation’s identity became the dominant cultural narrative. Even as 

Sudan’s first modern university set the stage for a future model of political resistance, it 

was also setting the stage for an attempt to unify the new nation that would ultimately 

plunge it into a long civil war.

Well before independence in 1956, there were thoughts about integrating the school 

curricula of the North and South in preparation for unity. A conference in 1947 recommended using Arabic in schools throughout the South, replacing English and native 

languages, and in 1954 such a law was finally decreed. By 1957, the new Ministry of 

Education abolished missionary schools, taking direct control of existing ones. Although 

it might have made sense to create a common language, these decisions were made in 

a political context in which the South was excluded and vastly underrepresented in the 

capital city. In 1958, the new democratically elected government was ousted in a military 

coup and the military regime began an aggressive effort to Islamize the South. Southern 

soldiers in the Sudanese army rebelled and the long civil war began. Despite the program 

of Arabic instruction in primary and secondary schools, English-language instruction and 

research prevailed nationwide at the university level.

The New South

Civil war raged in Sudan until 1972 when the Addis Ababa Agreement gave the South a 

certain degree of autonomy and relative calm. However, in 1983, President Jafaar Numeiri 

declared the nationwide application of sharia law and also revived efforts to impose the 

Arabic-language and Islamic-themed curriculum on the South. Once again, the South 

protested in violent rebellion. This time the fighting would last more than twenty years, 

until 2005, when Southern leader John Garang signed the CPA with current president 

Omar el Beshir. This agreement not only gave the South a degree of autonomy but also 

integrated it officially, for the first time, into the Northern political spectrum through a 

power-sharing arrangement. In addition, according to the agreement, the South will be 

given the right to vote for independence from the North in 2011. To bring some meaning 

to this promise, the Southern states were allowed to form a federated government with a 

presidency and ministries dealing with education, roads, legal issues, and the long-overdue development of the region.

In Khartoum, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)—the dominant Southern party and force behind the CPA—formed the Government of National Unity with the 

National Congress Party (NCP) of President Beshir according to the power-sharing terms 

of the agreement. However, this partnership of former enemies has been problematic from 

the beginning. Southerners arrived in Khartoum to take up their cabinet offices without 

any prior experience in national government and with little corresponding support in the 

entrenched civil service. Although the SPLM has appointed its share of cabinet ministers—including the Minster of Higher Education—the ruling party’s extensive network of 

power, wealth, and influence remains in place, making changes of policy all but impossible. Education policy continues to be an issue because the existing teachers, textbooks, 

and curriculum have been based on the Arabic-Islamic curriculum. 

The new regional government of the South recognizes the imperative for educating 

its war-torn and deprived population as quickly as possible, but it has also become very 

important for Southern leaders to change the language and the emphases of the curricuAlthough it might have made 

sense to create a common language, these decisions were 

made in a political context in 

which the South was excluded 

and vastly underrepresented in 

the capital city.

Southerners arrived in Khartoum 

to take up their cabinet offices 

without any prior experience in 

national government and with 

little corresponding support in 

the entrenched civil service. 
lum to English (the language of the old missionary schools and the development lingua 

franca) and to include references to traditional Southern culture, rather than Islamic 

teachings. This process is, in effect, an important part of re-valorizing Southern identity 

and has significant symbolic value. Developing a new curriculum for the South has been 

official policy from early on in the new post-agreement political landscape, but developing 

this curriculum, and finding trained teachers in the South who can teach it in English has 

been a major challenge.

Another critical issue for education in the South is the status of its higher-education 

institutions. All three of its universities were closed during the civil war and its flagship 

school—the University of Juba—was moved to Khartoum, where after twenty years it 

has more than doubled in size and become a nationally significant institution. In 2007, 

the University of Juba began to move two colleges and a few hundred students to its old 

Juba campus, but the logistics and cost of relocating this university—to a campus half 

its required size, with housing requirements left unmet for a great many students and 

faculty—have proven to be daunting. It is still unclear when and how much of the main 

Khartoum campus of the University of Juba will be relocated. As a result, the South’s 

leading institution of higher education still operates primarily in Khartoum. Without their 

teaching and research university in place, Southern Sudanese will be delayed in their 

efforts to create alternatives to the old policies of assimilation into the Arab-Islamic 

identity of the North. 

Although this brief description seems to indicate that the identity issues between 

North and South hinge mainly on religious identity and the imposition of Islam, the more 

important factor has actually been race or, rather, self-proclaimed race, as the Sudanese 

are a blended population of many tribes from across Africa and the Saharan region. While 

the majority of the population is Muslim, there is a much more complex calculation about 

whether a particular person is “Arab” or “African.” For example, Sudan is a member of both 

the African Union and the Arab League. While many today claim that its crossroads culture 

of multiple tribes and traditions is something to be proud of, the Northern ruling elites 

consider themselves to be Arab and descendants or relatives of the Prophet with links to 

a pure form of Islam. Thus, even in the North, Sudanese Muslims who are not from these 

powerful families still feel socially and politically inferior.

Islamists and the Education Revolution

Jafaar Numeiri’s regime breached the peace agreement with the South in 1983, imposing 

sharia law regardless of sect, so there was hope for change in the educational system 

when Numeiri’s regime was brought down in 1985. However, the interim military leadership and subsequent democratic coalition government led by Sadiq el Mahdi did not take 

the opportunity to repeal these laws, particularly as applied to non-Muslims. One of the 

partners in this coalition was the National Islamic Front (NIF)—a radical party led by 

Hassan el-Turabi with an agenda that included making Sudan a fundamentalist Islamic 

state with an Islamized (and therefore pacified) South. Having cultivated a following 

in secondary schools and universities during Numeiri’s time, the NIF dominated student 

unions in the country by the late 1980s. Student unions were a critical part of Sudan’s 

political spectrum because they served as political-party incubators and as a means of 

shaping the future voice of the elites. At the apex of political significance was the student 

union of the University of Khartoum—the erstwhile Gordon Memorial College—which was 

unquestionably the proving ground for the privileged and predestined and thus the most 

significant collection of student voices in the country.

Although Sudan has had only three brief bouts with democratic elections, student 

union elections—with party sponsorship and mentoring—were run each year with all 

the organization and seriousness of national political parties. The NIF, working in conjunction with Numeiri’s security forces, employed violence and intimidation to dominate 

The South’s leading institution 

of higher education still operates 

primarily in Khartoum.

At the apex of political significance was the student union of 

the University of Khartoum which 

was unquestionably the proving 

ground for the privileged and 

predestined and thus the most 

significant collection of student 

voices in the country.
student unions, thus positioning the radical party well for an eventual coup against the 

government of el-Mahdi in 1989. With el-Turabi as the party’s spiritual guide, a military 

leader, Omar el-Beshir, still president today, seized the presidency. Beshir lost no time in 

consolidating the party’s influence by banning and harassing its critics. On the very day 

he seized power, Beshir banned all trade unions but exempted the student and religious 

unions that the NIF already dominated. Given that the party had never gained a majority 

in national elections, the strategy seemed to rely on controlling educational institutions 

and indoctrinating or silencing the voices most likely to lead a revolt.

The University of Khartoum represented the spearhead of the new regime’s strategic 

approach to controlling educational institutions. Almost immediately upon taking power, 

Beshir reconfigured the entire management structure of Sudan’s higher-educational institutions. His new policy was dubbed the “education revolution.” Given that universities 

had hosted demonstrations and opposition movements that contributed to the downfall 

of two predecessor dictatorships, the NIF could not leave academia unattended. NIF members were placed in the Ministry of Higher Education and in the National Council of Higher 

Education and Science Research, which is responsible for overseeing all higher education 

policy. Next, Beshir targeted the governance of the University of Khartoum, voiding an 

academic-freedom act that faculty members had just achieved and abolishing the campus 

electoral system for university administrators. In its stead, his office appointed party 

loyalists as vice-chancellors, deans, and department chairs. Finally, Beshir named himself 

chancellor of all universities and repeated this pattern nationwide.

Controlling Students and Teaching Staff

Despite the initial quiescence of student unions during the coup, clashes began to break 

out between NIF students and their opponents, quickly reaching a violent pitch. As the 

repressive tactics and intent of the NIF became more evident, campus resistance became 

more intense. In 1990, the NIF slate of candidates lost the Khartoum University Student 

Union (KUSU) election. This was a blow to the NIF, which had believed its student support to be solid. Protests from the general public against poor economic conditions and 

high prices for food staples merged with student concerns about the Islamization of the 

curriculum and the extension of Arabic-language instruction to the universities. NIF losses 

prompted an aggressive response from the regime. The university was closed during the 

fall of 1990; during the graduation of 1991, the non-NIF KUSU president was kept from 

speaking. In July 1991, government security forces got into a scuffle with students on 

campus and began shooting randomly, and in September NIF-affiliated students seized 

the KUSU building to protest the union’s dissolution of student groups sympathetic to 

the NIF. This prompted another clash with security forces that resulted in the temporary 

closure of the university and the injury of thirty-six students. The government-appointed 

vice-chancellor barred KUSU from meeting in its building on campus and from accessing 

union funds. Despite these measures, the opposition coalition won the student election 

again in the fall of 1991. In 1992 student elections were canceled, causing an increase 

in tension. The announced victory of the NIF student candidate in fall 1993 prompted 

demonstrations and accusations of election rigging. After protestors damaged university 

buildings, security forces used tear gas and arrested close to three hundred students. 

Similar events occurred on other campuses, most notably on the campus of the 

prominent Gezira University in the northern city of Wad Medani, where 170 students 

were arrested after election-related protests. Amid constant clashes among students and 

security forces, many universities ceased having student union elections at all; the unions 

that continue to exist face threats and high levels of tension. In 2006, the Ahlia College 

in Wad Medani went ahead with student elections despite a request by the governor of 

the province—an NIF party official—not to do so. The dean of the college hired private 

Despite the initial quiescence of 

student unions during the coup, 

clashes began to break out 

between NIF students and their 

opponents, quickly reaching a 

violent pitch. 
security for the campus and the process went on peacefully, with the non-NIF coalition 

student representatives being elected into office.

Sporadic violence continues on campuses across the North, especially in Khartoum. 

On February 9, 2007, a student was killed in clashes between the NCP—the president’s 

party, created after a falling out with Turabi—and SPLM student factions on the campus 

of Nilein University. Each side accused the other of responsibility and alleged the use of 

guns, knives, and Molotov cocktails. Tensions remain high.

In addition to the Arabization and Islamization of the university curriculum, which had 

continued with English-language instruction and a secular curriculum until the 1989 coup, 

the NIF influenced the educational process by requiring all male students admitted to 

university to spend time in Popular Defense Forces (PDF) training camps before they could 

begin their studies. A national militia force created by President Beshir, the PDF essentially 

parallels the regular Sudanese armed forces and provides insurance against another coup 

from the military. In 1990, new students wishing to register to attend university had to 

do so at PDF camps. Critics of the policy have described PDF camp conditions as extremely 

harsh. All tendencies to question authority are subdued. One Sudanese writer describes 

the camp routine as “an exercise in ideological and religious indoctrination, an attempt to 

convert students into subordinate and obedient species, change their characters, and to 

enshrine fundamentalist principles into their minds.”1

In addition to administrators and students, university teaching staff were also affected 

by the NIF-instituted changes. Traditional standards of academic freedom and merit were 

redefined to accord with the NIF’s fundamentalist vision and to retain tight control on 

its public image. These policies largely affected Sudan’s political and intellectual elites, 

but there was another major reform that remade the face of higher education throughout 

the country and had long-term negative effects for the competitiveness of the national 

economy. Shortly after seizing power, Beshir declared the creation of five new universities 

and a doubling of admissions to the existing universities. This move came despite the 

fact that Sudan’s university graduates had already been experiencing precipitous drops in 

employment levels, as low as 17.4 percent in 1985–86. In addition, private education was 

deregulated, allowing entrepreneurs to open “colleges” as a business venture with little 

attention to academic standards or proper facilities. These changes were made effective 

immediately and with little additional overall expenditure for the higher-education budget. 

With resources stretched so thin, the older universities began to experience decay on their 

campuses as buildings were not maintained and broken equipment was not replaced. The 

abrupt shift in language instruction from English to Arabic meant a serious lack of teaching materials in many disciplines that traditionally rely on English publications. It also had 

an immediate discriminatory impact on students from the East, West (Darfur), and South 

who were not native Arabic speakers.

The changes were couched in rhetoric about anticolonialism and the return of Sudanese 

traditions and culture to education. Thus Beshir could claim that his makeover was for 

the good of the nation—a return to its Islamic values and an egalitarian expansion of 

access to a valued resource to the public—while at the same time he could control and 

weaken the natural critics of government power. The strategy has been extremely successful, having helped Beshir maintain power. His rule has lasted longer than any since 

Sudan’s independence. 

Unintended Consequences

The results of this educational makeover—from primary to university level—have become 

severe. A recent comprehensive analysis of higher education in Sudan bombards the reader 

with relentlessly negative statistical indicators. At the primary and secondary school levels 

enrollment is extremely low. As of 2000, the average amount of schooling among the adult 

population was only 1.91 years.2 This has a drastic impact on literacy rates, with a 32 perThe NIF influenced the educational 

process by requiring all male students 

admitted to university to spend time 

in Popular Defense Forces (PDF) 

training camps before they could 

begin their studies.

With resources stretched so thin, the 

older universities began to experience 

decay on their campuses as buildings were not maintained and broken 

equipment was not replaced.
cent rate of illiteracy for males and a 57 percent illiteracy rate for females in the privileged 

North.3 The rate for the war-torn South is much higher. Sudan falls into the lowest possible 

category for technological achievement in the United Nations Development Programme’s 

Human Development Report, which comparatively analyzes the number of patents and 

scientific articles, the spread of communications technology, and the development of 

human skills, such as engineering graduates and literacy rates, within countries. Sudan is 

considered “marginalized” in the index, ranking 129 out of 162 countries in the survey.4

The creation of so many new institutions of higher education—the number went 

from seventeen to seventy-seven during the 1990s—resulted in scarcer resources for all, 

even the country’s premier institution and national pride, the University of Khartoum. 

Threatened with the regime’s harsh indoctrination techniques for students and the loss of 

academic freedom for faculty members, hundreds of professors and eminent intellectuals 

fled Sudan in the early 1990s. During a two-year period (1992–94) more than one hundred 

professors left the University of Khartoum; they were replaced with graduate students or 

other instructors without appropriate qualifications. Some of the architects of the Islamist 

education policies eventually admitted that they were ruining the universities.5 An internal investigation by the Ministry of Higher Education in 1996 calculated that the country 

faced an 80 percent deficit in teaching staff.

Not only are there shortages of teaching staff for an increased number of students, 

but the physical necessities of higher education—buildings, laboratories, libraries, computers, etc.—have deteriorated to an unacceptable level. This is particularly problematic 

in the natural sciences, which require expensive equipment and constant updating. One 

report made by the Library of the University of Khartoum, detailing its holdings in chemistry, found that out of 2,540 books in the collection, many had “torn covers, ripped off 

pages and books without titles and others unrelated to science, let alone chemistry, and 

rare volumes destroyed by seeping rain water.”6 Without adequate funds to maintain or 

upgrade facilities, university campuses have become like workplaces; students no longer 

have dormitories on campus, few activities take place outside of the classroom, and the 

universities become empty after hours.

Today’s university population was raised under the full impact of the NIF’s Islamist policies and therefore does not have the exposure to critical thinking, creativity, and lifelong 

scholarship that a traditional liberal arts curriculum normally fosters. Their undergraduate 

experience has largely consisted of preparation for examinations with very little understanding of research methods or thoughtful scholarly debate. Campus life is also lacking, 

with few activities or groups functioning to enrich life outside the classroom. This sterile 

environment contributes to the alienation of university campuses from the communities 

around them. 

Students are understandably fixated on obtaining their certification rather than on 

the process of acquiring and understanding knowledge itself. However, as the volume of 

students has gone up, most new college graduates face a hostile economic environment, 

tempting many of them to apply for graduate study. Not surprisingly, graduate-level education within Sudan has also suffered, especially because many of the new entrants have 

poor English-language skills for the necessary texts at the graduate level. All of the problems that beleaguer undergraduate education become intensified at the graduate level: 

resources are scarce and of poor quality, teaching staff are inadequate and under qualified, 

and many of the resulting dissertations are substandard. This situation has circled back to 

cause pain to the government. Sudan’s educational system can no longer produce enough 

capable elites to help pull the country out of its economic, social, and political malaise.

Unprepared for Peace

An additional word about the effects of the Islamized curriculum is necessary here. The 

privileging of Islamic concepts in the learning process of all Sudanese students has had 

The creation of so many new 

institutions of higher education 

resulted in scarcer resources for 

all, even the country’s premier 

institution and national pride, 

the University of Khartoum.

Today’s university population 

was raised under the full impact 

of the NIF’s Islamist policies 

and therefore does not have the 

exposure to critical thinking, 

creativity, and lifelong scholarship that a traditional liberal 

arts curriculum normally fosters.
the effect of not only marginalizing non-Muslim Southerners but also of hardening their 

resistance. It has also made it more difficult for the traditionally tolerant Muslim population in the North to relate to the Southerners in their midst in an accepting manner. The 

curriculum for Sudanese schoolchildren has thus contributed to the long internal conflicts 

and shaky peace. Schools everywhere inscribe the categories of national insiders and outsiders and create and reproduce powerful social boundaries that guard access to political 

power. Despite the 2005 peace agreement, for example, Southern schoolchildren living in 

the North are compelled to study from texts that not only assume a Muslim identity as the 

default but that also actively encourage the student to become a devout Muslim, equating 

such devoutness with patriotism and good citizenship. 

These lessons from the Northern curriculum continue to reinforce the image of Southerners as outsiders. Even mathematics textbooks use examples from the Koran. An education official who found such references harmless and not indicative of an attempt to 

convert non-Muslims cited the following example: “There are five prayers in the day [for 

Muslims]. Ahmad has already prayed twice. How many more times does he have to pray 

that day?”7 A recent study of Sudanese textbooks found that the majority of references 

to a specific religious identity are to Islam, with Christianity mentioned only in one of 

the books in the study.8 Even more worrisome are the frequent references to violence and 

warfare, encouraging the skills of soldiering as necessary characteristics of a good citizen. 

In one fourth-grade Arabic-language book, a poem encourages students to become brave 

fighters:

In a sixth-grade Arabic-language book, students are told that warfare is a duty and 

that they will be rewarded: ‘“You know what excellent rewards Allah prepares for Muslims 

for fighting Kufar [non-Muslims].’ . . . In the same textbook students are asked to write an 

essay on how to support the Sudanese government army in its war, referring to the civil 

conflict in the country.”9

Given the lessons students are asked to learn in their primary years, coupled with the 

overtaxed higher-education system, it is no surprise that Sudan’s current academic situation is noncompetitive and ill-prepared to contribute to the peaceful rebuilding of the 

country.

The Situation Now

Since the signing of the CPA in 2005, and with the formation of the Government of 

National Unity—a coalition government in which the SPLM holds a negotiated number 

of cabinet offices and the vice presidency—the atmosphere on university campuses has 

softened somewhat. Several distinguished professors have returned from comfortable 

positions abroad to take up their old posts in the hopes of being active facilitators of 

change. Many have also returned to positions with independent nonprofit organizations, 

in which they are more free to undertake research, publish, and engage in soft activism. 

The government itself appears ready to encourage a reengagement with higher education, and there have been several conferences devoted to the roles of universities and to 

addressing acknowledged problems. One recent conference at the University of Juba (still 

in Khartoum) focused on the once-forbidden topic of academic freedom. The conference 

call for papers read:

Higher Education Institutions can play a major role in disseminating the 

culture of peace, spirit of tolerance and peaceful-coexistence, facilitating 

social interaction, guidance and supervision of development and good 



I have no fear defending my home land 

My flowing song is the tank and the gun 

Shout loudly: welcome death

Even mathematics textbooks use 

examples from the Koran.
governance. However, these institutions can not fully carry out their roles 

in the absence of academic freedom and university autonomy. . . . The 

proposed conference will bring together all Sudanese universities’ staff, 

researchers, policy makers, and students and other actors to deliberate and 

critically engage on key issues and areas of common concern.10

This paragraph indicates a remarkable departure from the permitted discourses on 

the role of the university during the education revolution. It also smartly makes the link 

between academic freedom and peace and development. Furthermore, the conference was 

conducted in both Arabic and English—perhaps a nod to the university’s assumed future 

move back to the South, where English is now the official language of instruction. Still, 

though recent events indicate a more permissive atmosphere regarding political critique, 

there are few substantial changes in Sudanese public discourse or in the academy. Journalists and human rights activists, for example, continue to be jailed for exposing abuses and 

corruption, and university administrators continue to reflect ruling-party preferences.

Particular attention is starting to be paid to the development-oriented natural sciences, such as agriculture and engineering. Now that Sudan has a growing oil industry, 

there is a desire to have native petroleum engineers to oversee the significant foreign 

investment and presence in the country. But once again, the palpable lack of Englishlanguage skills limits the number of graduates capable of benefiting from foreign study 

and exchange programs that would enrich and upgrade Sudanese degrees in the sciences. 

Sudan’s lapsed language skills also have interesting political and diplomatic ramifications. 

Sudanese politics has increasingly attracted the attention of international organizations 

such as the African Union and the United Nations. While diplomacy occurs in any case 

with translators, the weaker the ability to interface competently in the global lingua 

franca, the greater the risk of misunderstandings and the less sympathetic the nation’s 

political position may appear. The current shortage of competent language skills has 

meant that even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has had trouble finding new recruits 

with appropriately advanced English skills to fill the vacant positions of the Sudanese 

diplomatic corps.

In this context, there is now an opening—a social and political space—for changes 

in Sudan’s higher-education system. Those who have an interest in fostering the country’s 

transition to a stable and peaceful democracy (and these include both Sudanese and 

members of the international community) should take note. Sudan’s social transformation 

to peace must be accompanied by a strengthened and vibrant intellectual sector.

Breathing Life Back into the Academy

In the new atmosphere following the peace agreement with the South—while there is a 

time of transition preceding the general election (2009) and the self-determination vote 

(2011)—there are possibilities for Sudanese institutions of higher education to regain 

their prominent role as nodes for social connection, growth, and transformation. It is now 

possible for universities to try to revive a campus life that not only generates knowledge 

and love of learning in the students but that also serves the surrounding community and 

connects the country’s elites with the population. This would allow a sense of public service to be generated that could become the foundation for the peaceful democracy envisioned in the CPA. In this model, universities would become active players in civil society, 

and there would be a relationship of mutual support among teaching staff, students, 

activists, the press, and professional organizations. Ultimately, the Sudanese government 

itself would benefit from this thriving civic culture, and certainly it would enrich efforts 

to secure peace throughout the country.

This vision for Sudanese higher education is described by independent scholar 

Dr. Mohamed El Amin Ahmed El Tom. He describes the ideal role of the “critical university” 

as one that fosters a culture of peace.

Journalists and human rights 

activists continue to be jailed 

for exposing abuses and corruption, and university administrators continue to reflect 

ruling-party preferences.

It is now possible for universities to 

try to revive a campus life that not 

only generates knowledge and love 

of learning in the students but that 

also serves the surrounding community and connects the country’s 

elites with the population. 
10

The promotion of such a culture has important implications on both 

teaching and research. The education of school teachers has been a 

major responsibility of public universities for the past three decades.

. . . In a multi-racial and multi-cultural society, such as exists in Sudan, 

teachers need to be trained “to inculcate the values and attitudes 

that foster tolerance, create respect for cultural ethnic and religious 

diversity as well as human rights, and encourage peace.”11

Thus, universities can assume a critical responsibility in stabilizing a war-torn country, 

and it is a duty that they should undertake with purpose. The atmosphere of openness and 

acceptance that takes place on the campus of a “critical university” has a great multiplying effect. Students carry these attitudes into their communities and into public service. 

Many of them will become teachers themselves and demonstrate these values to another 

generation. This is the traditional role of a university—to be a great social resource for 

a country. 

By also engaging directly with society, a university can play an even more powerful 

role in demonstrating how a diverse community can interact peacefully and productively. 

Sudanese universities are beginning to accept this role of civil-society actor and have 

begun to host workshops and conferences that are open to groups outside of academia. 

They have begun to encourage the use of drama and music to illustrate political lessons. 

For example, in one workshop on voter education and civic engagement, the mixed 

audience of academics, students, journalists, human-rights activists, and political-party 

members were asked to create rules for a mock election. Taking the assignment one step 

further, they actually wrote and acted out a series of vignettes illustrating the various 

difficulties that might be encountered at a provincial polling station on Election Day. Not 

only were the skits amusing, they were also informative for an audience mostly too young 

to have experienced one of Sudan’s three national elections.

In another example, a college-hosted workshop explored the meaning of social peace 

by having participants act out how difficult it might be to persuade an uneducated person that s/he should know about the bill of rights in the new interim constitution. Even 

among the educated crowd of participants, there were many who were not familiar with 

the guarantees and rights in this constitution required by the CPA. These workshops are 

important because Sudan’s once-vibrant civil-society sector has been weakened by repressive tactics—many activists and journalists have been harassed or imprisoned. Universities active in public engagement can augment the roles of civil-society organizations from 

a slightly more secure position. 

It is a necessary part of a well-rounded educational institution that concerts, plays, 

and lectures be open to the public and that students are encouraged to undertake projects 

in their communities for credit. These ideas are not new to Sudan, but they need to be 

encouraged actively at this moment in time. Sudanese university students have a long 

tradition of suffering for using their voices to transform the politics of their country. While 

direct political confrontation is one possible lesson learned from a university education, 

the time is ripe for Sudanese universities to cooperate with grassroots organizations and 

to lead society toward peace by providing open civic resources to the surrounding communities and a model of productive collaboration among Sudan’s different identity groups.

Recommendations

The weakened higher-education sector in Sudan has taken its toll by reducing the ability 

of universities to contribute to peace and development by graduating globally literate, 

well-adjusted scholars who can readily adapt to a variety of positions in both public 

service and civil society and who are prepared to work in Sudan’s diverse regions beyond 

Khartoum. Fortunately, there are indications that the government wishes to take steps 

Sudanese universities have 

begun to host workshops and 

conferences that are open to 

groups outside of academia. 
11

to reverse the trend. Expanded academic activities such as conferences and workshops 

on transitions to democracy, the role of political parties, and election management have 

not been obstructed. Rather, the NCP has sent its own members to participate in these 

activities, thus building the party’s capacity in advance of the impending elections.12 

Opposition parties, including the SPLM, also attend, creating broad party involvement in 

transitioning to democracy. 

Participation in such programs by a spectrum of political actors is a welcome sign 

and encourages the hope that commitment to the process may follow. This is the ideal 

moment for the international community to provide a needed boost to Sudan’s weakened 

higher-education sector. Creative collaboration, research, and teaching exchanges both 

to and from Sudan, international conferences involving Sudanese students and faculty, 

and active attention to restoring libraries and research facilities are all ways in which 

international bodies can contribute to both intellectual and concrete capacity building. 

Such activities currently exist, but there is plenty of room for expansion, especially for 

universities in Sudan’s provincial areas. Student and faculty exchange programs could be 

made more accessible by special exceptions in current U.S. visa restrictions and sanctions 

regarding the Sudanese government.

Sudanese education officials, university faculty, and civil-society organizations should 

work together to develop programs to counter four key educational problems: the lack of 

exposure to critical thinking and research skills; the lack of vibrant extracurricular life, 

which can give students the opportunity to experience fully the diversity of their society; 

the alienation of universities from their local communities; and, critically, the pattern of 

student activism that repeatedly falls back on violence to achieve its goals. 

Growing a nonviolent Sudanese model of civic engagement between universities and 

their local communities can go a long way toward addressing these issues, whether it is 

through grants and exchanges to universities for curricula that require practical experience (such as health sciences, teaching, and agriculture) or through helping to create 

public programs on political issues or the arts. Such programs place higher education in 

the role of public forum and model community. Some Sudanese universities are already 

doing exactly this—they should be encouraged and asked to partner with smaller or lessexperienced institutions to form networks and exchanges between scholars and students.

Given the importance of implementing the provisions of the CPA and other agreements in the next couple of years, universities can serve as authoritative sources of 

information on the content and impact of the rights in the interim constitution and the 

necessary steps leading up to the general elections. Many Sudanese do not have a good 

understanding of how the political spectrum was transformed in principle by the agreement. Universities should model the intended transformation to a peaceful society by 

teaching appreciation of diversity and acceptance among Sudan’s many ethnic identities 

and cultures. Finally, student activists must be encouraged to exchange their views and 

hold union elections in a peaceful manner. With patterns of violence having long been 

entrenched, this will be a difficult transition, but nonviolent expression of political views

must be taught and modeled in the very environment where Sudan’s future leaders are 

being socialized.

This is the ideal moment for the 

international community to provide a needed boost to Sudan’s 

weakened higher-education sector.

Student activists must be encouraged to exchange their views and hold 

union elections in a peaceful manner.
Notes

1. Zaki El-Hassan, “Instability of Higher Education in the Sudan: The Effect of Al-Bashir’s Higher 

Education Policies,” Reports: Education in Sudan (July 11, 1992), found at 

http://www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/education/hi-ed.htm (accessed February 7, 2007).

2. Mohamed El Amin Ahmed El Tom, Higher Education in Sudan: Towards a New Vision for a New Era

(Khartoum: Sudan Centre for Educational Research, 2006), 10. 

3. Anders Breidlid, “Education in the Sudan: The Privileging of an Islamic Discourse,” Compare 35, 

no. 3 (September 2005): 247–63, 258.

4. El Tom, Higher Education in Sudan, 18–19.

5. Ann Mosely Lesch, The Sudan—Contested National Identities (Bloomington: Indiana University 

Press, 1998), 144.

6. M. Abdelmalik and Ibrahim Abu El Gasim (March 1994), as cited in El Tom, Higher Education in 

Sudan, 51.

7. Marc Sommers, Islands of Education: Schooling, Civil War and the Southern Sudanese, 1983–2004 

(Paris: International Institute for Education Planning, 2005), 246.

8. This and the following quotes in this paragraph are from Hala M. Ibrahim, “A Nation in Turmoil: Is 

Education to Blame? An Analysis of Sudan’s National Basic Education Curriculum” (master’s thesis, Ohio 

University, 2006).

9. Ibid.

10. University of Juba, http://www.juba.edu.sd/conf/index.htm (accessed February 19, 2007).

11. El Tom, Higher Education in Sudan, 93, quoting Goolam Mohamedbhai, The Role of Higher Education 

in Developing a Culture of Peace in Africa (UNESCO, 20003).

12. I am indebted to Professor Peter Woodward for this observation.

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