US$2.5 billion Chinese loan to upgrade RSS’s universities

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 13 September 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.

Reaction to upgrading initiative

“The universities upgrading initiative has been the best-kept secret from university vice-chancellors,” said John Apuruot Akec, vice-chancellor of the University of Northern Bahr El Ghazal and chair of the think-tank Academics and Researchers Forum for Development.

“We only hear about it as a passing comment by the minister,” he told University World News.

“How would a minister and maybe a few friends and consultants commit such huge national financial resources without involving the participation of stakeholders (universities and higher education experts) in order to improve project design, ensure value for money, and improve accountability and transparency in the implementation?” Akec asked.

He said as far as he knew the loan had not actually been approved by the Ministry of Finance or the government: “The minister appears completely oblivious and out of touch with reality.”

Akec argued: “If the project is allowed, this will be a multi-billion-dollar scandal that will be paid for by the South Sudanese for many generations to come, when we cannot be sure if we are getting value for money or feeding the mouths of corrupt politicians, officials and their contractors.”

Is the Chinese universities model suited to South Sudan?

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.

What is the way forward for reform?

Akec highlighted a number of problems facing the higher education sector and suggested ways to deal with them.

“Apart from crying ‘quality’, we – or rather the minister of higher education – have not articulated a convincing and well reasoned vision for higher education in South Sudan.”

He argued that focusing on upgrading the the five universities is unfair to the other three new institutions, which “have not admitted students but have a founding administration in place”. They are being deprived of the funding they need to get off the ground.

“These universities are instituted by an act of a parliament and have been established by passing a legal bill into university acts,” Akec pointed out. “The minister breaks the law by ignoring these new universities without the approval of the president and the parliament.”

Akec also argued for considering the provision of new subject specialisations that are not currently provided by any of the existing universities. “Would it not be better to allow the current universities to get on with what they have (but support them partially) and then build new colleges providing new specialisations on new campuses?”

He argued that each of the eight universities could be granted a minimum of US$2 million per year to spend on infrastructure and US$500,000 per year to hire expat academics in rare technologies, maths, English and medical fields, for the next 10 to 20 years.

This, along with the introduction of “very strict monitoring, auditing, accountability, and reporting systems, including best practice in procurement, contracting and bidding systems, and project execution”, would offer South Sudan the opportunity of developing state-of-the-art campuses reflective of the country’s cultural values.

“The results would be startling,” Akec concluded.