Government has no plan to open new university in South Sudan

Dec 16, 2006 (JUBA) — The Ministry of Education in the Government of Southern Sudan has no immediate plans to open new universities. The minister stressed that priority is given to repatriate the existing universities to the south.

In an interview with Sudan Radio Service (SRS) in Juba, Education Minister Dr. Michael Milli Hussein said southern Sudanese students will continue to be admitted to the three universities in Juba, Wau and Malakal.

He said the Ministry of Education is working hard to see that the three universities are transferred fully from Khartoum to southern Sudan as soon as possible.

“At the moment we have three universities which are going to operate. We have Juba University, Bahr el Ghazal University, and Upper Nile University, and these are the universities we have and we are busy trying to repatriate them to their respective hubs. Then, after, we will think of having more universities or not.”

Milli said students who are Arabic-pattern will continue to be taught in Arabic while the English-pattern students will be taught in English.

The Sudanese president pledged during a visit to Rumbek in July to open a new university there but it seems no project has been done in this regard.

(SRS/ST)