Learning in South Sudan: illiteracy wrapped in black-market education
5 min readEducation in South Sudan Tilted Towards Black-market Learning!
By Sunday de John, Juba, South Sudan
July 9, 2015 (SSB) —- Like most South Sudanese, I am not a very learned person. I do not have the best education on earth. Too, I am not a naysayer on people’s education. I am just a worried man. Worried about the future of my young country. It is this country that I am worried about. My country is being held back by use of shortcuts, shortcuts such as quick accruement of unworked for wealth, undeserved power, unreliable dexterity and above all, illiteracy wrapped in black-market education.
Despite being a country of great abundance, the copiousness of our resources has no positive impact on us individually and as a nation. Yes, in our disposal are varieties of abundant resources, but we shall abandon them either unused or misused. That is the truth about this great country.
The reasons could be attributed to perhaps poor planning but in fact the mother of all despicable backwardness within us is illiteracy. The illiteracy amidst is what permits warlords and power-mongers to stage coups, destroy the little development hastened by long-armed individuals and above all, murder innocent people, run off and return at will without being questioned. This is the ailment we want to allow to follow its natural course without intervention.
However, the bitterness shall always be blamed on corruption although the bigger portion shall in my mind be always blamed on illiteracy or ill literacy. Ill literacy in my perspective means, presumed education or education in papers but not in minds such that the possessor have all the necessary credentials theoretically but in practicality, a rotten mind trailed by a huge body.
The educational issue in question isn’t that our education system despite lack of syllabus is bad; rather it is that there are commercial educational centers with funny names that sounds like kiosks but that have inculcated themselves into their shanty premises around South Sudan hunting for money without rendering quality education.
There is no problem going to PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES such as Rumbek University, Torit University, John Garang University of Science and Technology, Juba University, Upper Nile University, Bahr El Ghazal University and competent Private Universities like Catholic University of South Sudan. The case lies with those other universities that confer degrees on lowly qualified students such as Primary 6 leavers.
As if black-market education in the country is the only damaging factor, there are other worse scenarios where some very unscrupulous scholars come to Eastern Africa especially Uganda and Kenya and refuse to endure academic hardship by opting to acquire dangling University Degrees cheaply from Nasser Road in Kampala and River Road in Nairobi then move back to Juba where they block true graduates from local Universities and call themselves great achievers.
I know a few from Uganda and a lot here from Nairobi who purport to be graduates yet they are fulfilling that on the streets. I stand a chance to stand before a competent court of law and testify on behalf of my fellow South Sudanese who although qualified, are blocked by fake degree holders on count of having strong backers in the job market.
I am not saying that Eastern Africa awards fake degrees, rather there are robust criminals that fake survival by cheating the unknowing or those in a hurry to acquire credentials overnight by issuing them degrees that they print from their computers akin to real degrees confer by the victimized Universities.
In this light, the quickest way of salvaging South Sudan from her deep slumber is through quality education. We need to give what belongs to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. That is the biblical basis of Justice.
The employers must as well note with concern that whoever they employ is qualified from a recognized institution of learning and is competent in his/her field of study. This is not to block unschooled people out of job market.
However, those practicing fraud especially academic frauds are unscrupulous people of low dignity and more so they are very shameless in actions and would always want recognition even when they actually don’t deserve it. The red-eyed document forger will always demean a qualified person and so would always as well desire to eliminate him/her.
Characteristics of forgers are prominent; they have ballistic thoughts and speak hard English with little recognition of simple tense from a complex literature jargon. They have resonant voices that sometimes echo in self-acceptance.
A shortcut that has and will have more drawbacks is basically permitted by our systems but is never too late to salvage the salvageable.
I hope this serve your day as you wait for the next Column in this space. Till then, yours Truly, Mr. Teetotaler!
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