How Big Ego and Misplaced Ideology are Destroying the Country Greatest Public University
4 min readBy Heskey Deng
The University of Juba is home to many of the country’s leading scholars in dozens of fields, and for decades it has been an important laboratory for social change in the Sudan before and particularly South Sudan. It has also been at the forefront of many struggles for political, social, civil and labour rights struggles, as both an incubator of new ideas and practices and as a laboratory in which various attempts to change the balance of power and responsibility between social groups, and between society and government, have played out.
It is two months since the Public University has been shut down due to clashes rocks in the campus amongst the students, since then no step has been taking by the government and the University senate on the matters, as they playing deaf hearing on the problems.
As to mirroring the clashes, it was just between the two students, and even they were apartment mate, although it brought many students in, it would not reached to the closure of the public University for two months, if there is no ego and political ideology behind it because the students, who fought last time, were those who are failure in education, so they want to poisons the brilliant students.
By then, the University administration {Senates} formed fact-finding committee to instigate the roots cause of the problem, but up to now, no results, while they are just received salary of no sweats, and no one questioned them…look at failed government, I am tired of them, even Somalia government is better than ours.
It proven that, the juba University administration is too weak to hammer out such minors fighting erupted in the university campus in the end of March between the few students of great Equatoria and Dinka, instead for them to solved the problems, they pre-tunes it to the level of ethnicity line.
More broadly, the Juba University Vice Chancellor, government and Ministry of Higher Education has shown neither a capacity nor willingness to re-opening the public University for students to fulfill their work planning.
In response to this failure, bring me to conclude that, it is scorch tactic of undermine or delaying of poor students education to finish their course early, and it’s another way of bestow chance and advantage to their children, who studying in East African Universities to get good job without hard competition but shame to them {government officials}.
The Government (Ministry of Higher Education), and Juba University Administration incapacity and lack of determination to ensure the effective operations of the University in the new nation for eight years has amount to poor equality of education system, but at the moment they want to clear themselves and trying to find scapegoat in the recent disagreement among the students.
The idiotic Vice Chancellor with his foolish decision of closure high institute of learning indefinitely with immediately ordered of the innocent students to vacate the hostels due to minor fighting at mid of March put them in the storms of hunger and frustration life, as they are loitering on the street of city searching for surviving means, but no persons and even the government to answer their suffering, whereas they are enjoys their days and nights drinking beer, and smoking a big weed tube {gals} at hotels in Juba using public money, money which the parents of poor students sacrifice their life.
While on the other hand, the Country government distancing themselves from the closure of institution, instead of pressurizes the failure Juba University Vice –Chancellor with his idiotic administrations to re-open the university, they just sit back enjoys their office air-condition and comfortable classical chair that fools them not to thinks for tomorrow future, simply their children are pursuing their studying in foreigners countries.
However, the country government, and particularly minister of higher education can pressurize the Juba University Vice Chancellor and administration in whole to re-open the public university, so that the infected students will wings up their years.
Indeed, in societies otherwise so thoroughly dominated by money and its colonization of every sphere of private and public life, it is imperative that public universities remain one of the few places where a democratic, non-commoditized public sphere can function, one that encourages open research and debate not overly determined by financial or partisan ideological considerations. It’s hard to see how societies can address the myriad challenges they face and survive democratically if the great public universities such as Juba University remain malfunction. Sadly, the current leadership of the University of Juba is contributing to the rapid deterioration of public discourse and to the stifling of knowledge production, which will be crucial to any possible economic and political renewal in the South Sudan.
It might well be too late to stop this process here, but those observing this debacle from the outside would do well to learn from our mistakes before they suffer a similar fate.
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