$2.5 b Chinese loan to upgrade South Sudan universities

Wednesday, 3 October 2012 00:53 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

South Sudan plans to upgrade its five public universities to new, modern campuses, with US$2.5 billion worth of Chinese loans backed by oil. But the move has come in for criticism, including for lack of consultation with local higher education stakeholders.

The campus upgrading plan was announced by Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister Peter Adwok Nyaba, according to a Reuters report.

South Sudan achieved independence from Sudan in July 2011 to become Africa’s newest state – albeit one of the world’s least developed countries. It has eight public universities, but only five of them are fully operational, while the other three are new and do not yet have students.

The upgrading plan entails moving the country’s existing five public university campuses, which are cramped and lack proper facilities, to new, modern campus infrastructure.

Chinese companies have prepared the designs for the five universities, including Juba University in the capital, along with four other universities: in the states of Upper Nile, Western Bahr al-Ghazal, Jonglei and Lakes respectively. The upgrading project was expected to start this year and finish in 2017, but it was delayed by South Sudan closing off its oil output last January in a dispute with Khartoum over how much it should pay to export crude through pipelines in Sudanese territory. Akec flagged a number of concerns about the technical, cultural, environmental and socio-economic suitability of the Chinese universities model to South Sudan. “There is a concern whether it is right to ‘hand down’ on South Sudan’s universities Chinese models of what we call a university campus, given the different cultures, traditions and values.

“Even within South Sudan, local environmental and cultural differences, and socio-economic conditions prevail. Have they been accommodated by the Chinese design?”

“Apart from the fancy expression – ‘modern campuses’ – nobody knows what we are going to get, such as how many labs, lecture halls, libraries, [or how much] equipment. What type of colleges will be built through this financing? Will it give priority to science and technology subjects? If not, then is that the right thing to do?” Akec said.