Three universities to be returned to southern Sudan soon: minister

MOMBASA, Kenya, June 4, 2004 (Xinhua) — Sudanese government Friday unveiled a comprehensive post-conflict education blueprint, guaranteeing transfer of three universities to southern Sudan, currently controlled by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

After attending an African education minister’s conference in the Kenyan coastal city Mombasa, Sudanese Higher Education and Scientific Research Minister Mubarak Mohammed Magzoub told journalists that the three universities, Juba, Upper Nile and BahrEl Ghazal, relocated to the northern Sudan during the war which begun in 1983, will be transferred to the south once a committee chaired by Sudanese First Vice President Ali Osman Taha finishes its work.

The transfer of the universities is a key component of its postconflict plan aiming at linking higher education to the needs of the community in the neglected southern Sudan, Magzoub said.

The move comes just one week after the Sudanese government and the SPLM/A signed key peace protocols in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, paving the way for a full cease-fire and implementation pact to end a war that has cut Africa’s biggest country in two forover two decades.

Meanwhile, Magzoub disclosed that some universities, community development colleges, technical education schools as well as teacher training institutions will be established in the south in the future, which are geared towards addressing the immediate development needs in the region.

All qualified persons from SPLA/M and any other factions in the south can be recruited to join these institutions, all affected students will be re-admitted to continue their education,” he said.