The Fundamental Problems Facing Higher Education Institutions In South Sudan

By Ustaz John Garang Ayii Riak, Bor, South Sudan

1. Introduction

Saturday, February 2, 2019 (PW) —- South Sudan known, as the Republic of South Sudan is a landlocked Country in East Africa region, which gained its independence on 9^th July 2011 from the Sudan. Sudan and its people are marked by more continuous civil war since 1950s, and the lives of people in the South must therefore be understood in terms of the effect of civil war on them. It has been the longest lasting armed conflict in Africa, and has had particularly devastating effects on the population and education especially in south. During the war, the existing schools were turned into empty shells. Children at all levels were left out of school. The main reason was lack of enrolment opportunities, lack of school buildings, rising educational costs for poor families, high dropout rates due to insecurity and inadequate government expenditure especially in HE (UNICEF, 2008; 14).

1.1. Higher Education Institutions’ System (HEIs) 

The HE system is refers to the education offered after secondary school, or HE is any institution above the high school level, Colleges, universities and technical schools are called institutions of higher education where students can enroll in diploma, associate, degree or 4- or 5-year degree programs or Master Degree and PhDs. Institutions are splits into three sub-sectors: Universities, Other Degree Awarding Institutions (ODAI) and Other Tertiary Institutions (OTI) sub sectors.

In South Sudan, HE is under the responsibility of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, (MOHEST) and the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) which was established by the 2012 Education Act of Parliament, which is a new legal and institutional framework and it has developed administrative and operation structures to regulate higher education, to guide the establishment of institutions of higher learning, which determines the policies and direction of the country’s higher educational system that consists of 19 institutions and five public universities and private ones.

But many other problems emerged into HEIs. But South Sudan’s HEIs’ Administration like another country in the world has been faced a lot of problems since the time of signature of CPA and the HEI administration had tried to solve some of the problems and some are not solvable.

1.2. Data Analysis

Higher Education Students’ Data;

Demographically, South Sudan, like most sub-Saharan African countries has scaring and inconsistent data with no trend available for higher education. Existing data indicate that the closure of northern Sudan campuses following South Sudan’s independence in 2011 has negatively affected enrolment in public high learning institutions (HLIs), resulting in a continuing fall in student enrolment from 23,000 in 2009 to 16,500 in 2012 to 6,500 in 2015 (Prof Abol, 2016). The illiteracy rate is estimated to be as high as an astounding 80% of the general population and 90% of women (UNICEF, 2008: 20). But 2013 war had worsened female enrollment and it dropped to 5% at HE because there is lack of girls’ role model and qualified female teachers. Still, five public universities continued function under threat and difficulty situations of war and conflicts. The five public Universities together they educate nearly 40, 000 students. That is only 0.18% of the population of about 13. Million. The outbreak of conflict in December 2013 resulted in massive disruption to the sector, all public universities were closed down, but it was only Dr. John Gerang Memorial University of Science and technology that was first opened among the five with the University of Upper Nile transferred to Juba. Public universities lost students in huge numbers, many of whom seemed to favor private institutions either within the country or in neighboring countries like Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia or Sudan. It is also believed that a large number of students chosen to study abroad in neighboring countries. In 2015, public universities were working at 60% of capacity, with more than 4,000 vacant places, according to MoHEST admission records. In 2015, three-quarters of public students were enrolled in undergraduate programmes (4,877 students). The remaining 1,585 (25%) were enrolled in graduate programmes. Female enrolment accounted for 12% of total enrolment in public universities and 18% in private institutions in 2015 (UNICEF, 2014).

2:1. Academic Staff

• Numbers

South Sudanese five public universities have inadequate academic staff because they had lost many of their staff in the 2010 when the universities were move to south from North Sudan. Juba, with 66% of the students, lost 77% of its staff – leaving it with only 137 academic staff in total. The ratios would not have been any better than the previous years. The higher education subsector was able to attract more staff on part time basis. Similarly large numbers of Upper Nile and Bahr el Ghazal University staff remained in Khartoum. A World Bank report in 2012, which I used for my research but which is not available online, found that only 721 faculties were employed at the southern universities. Since then staff numbers have improved. For example, Juba’s staff increased from 291 in 2014 to 574 in early 2016. Most faculties are under qualified (MoHEST Report 2016).

(b). Qualifications  

According to the same World Bank survey only 86 of all academics in South Sudan held PhDs in 2012. Only 36 faculties were full professors, while 62 were associate professors, 76 assistant professors, 242 lecturers, and 262 teaching assistants. This is still the most educated workforce in the country. While universities work to overcome the staff shortage, they depend on part-time lecturers. According to Professor John Akech and Professor Samson S. Wassara, the Vice Chancellors of Juba and Bahr el Ghazal, 31% of Juba and 60% of Bahr el Ghazal lecturers were part-timers. In addition; female teachers are 7% in Juba and Bhar Al Ghazal universities which mean that there is female teacher disparity at the HEIs. The total number of academic staff numbers, which includes part-timers, was 721 with average growth over years at 12.8%, which was not matched average enrolment growth of influx students. This as aforementioned includes part timers from various fields. There is need for a deliberate effort to train and retain staff in the universities and to create a pool of academicians to meet the growing demand for higher education (Abol, 2015).

(c). Adequacy

In 2015/16 the overall fulltime academic staffs were 39% as compared to 61% share in 2014/15. At universities level alone, the percentage of fulltime was 61%. Although there is increase of academic staff in absolute terms, there seems to be a downward trend cropping up on share of full time staff as reflected in these figures; 75% in 2013/14, 63% in 2014/5 the full-time academic staff dropped down due to economic and war effects to 22% to in 2015/16 and the full time academic staff dropped to 10% in 2017 and 2018, but the universities depends on part-times working with NGO according to (Prof. Robert M. Deng, the DVC for Administration of Finance Juba University (MoHEST Report, 2018).

(d). Staff Development / training

There was a small improvement in absolute terms in staff development from 115 in academic year 2014/15 to 200 in 2015/16. At the universities level, some 42 (or 25%) were on PhD programme as compared to 30 (or 15%) in 2015/16. The number of staff on masters’ level programmes was 222 (or 18.5%) as compared to 308 or 20.1% in 2015/16. But now the scholarship opportunities had increased like Chinese, UK, Japanese, Canada and Germany Scholarships had taken many T.As for Master degrees and few for PhDs. N.B; some of the above data will not be accurate because this was last years data. I went online but I did not get the current data. Therefore, bear with me.

2:2. Literature review

This literature review focuses on numerous problems and challenges facing the Administration and Management of HEIs in the Republic of South Sudan, these includes; administrative and managerial challenges, policy making and implementation, finance, lack of human resources, physical infrastructure, poor academic performances and service delivery, this paper is going to pinpoint, problems facing HEIs with recommendations and conclusions.

3:a). Problems Facing South Sudan Higher Educational Institutional (HEIs) Administration and Management

When South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011, there were a lot of expectations that higher education and education in general, would top the national spending priority list. But things fall apart from there; and this caused setback to the of development challenges ranging from gaining quality higher education in relation to resources invested and service delivery in the field of higher education and many others. The fact is that South Sudan universities are currently function in very difficult circumstances, which I can call it that they are operating “by God’s grace” in terms of the economic, infrastructure, and political problems facing the country and in the context of globalization, and the road to future success will not be an easy one and it is not clear. Now, at certain times, university administration is challenged with the question of whether to close the public universities or keep them operating. This problem originated back in 2011 when the education sector lost prominence two ministries of higher education and general education were combined to form one ministry. Budgets were reduced as part of national austerity measures, staffs were reassigned, and directorates give new names.

3:1. Wars and instabilities in the country:

The factor number one is war and instabilities in the country, as an obvious answer, even if you woke someone up from sleep would still give just war affected the universities. The buildings and property of Upper Nile University in Malakal and Dr. John Garang MUST in Bor were plundered when their towns became ensnared in the conflict. The rebels destroyed and looted some universities properties and some staff and students fled, so the Public universities were seriously affected, many people were forced to flee to the neighboring state like Uganda, Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia and most of the schools were closed. In this war majority of students did not get access to higher education war greatly affected due to the consequences of war occurrences. This war made universities were automatically closed and they took almost to re-open due to war (UNICEF 2016). 

3:2. Shortage of qualified teaching staff 

The first problem was the shortage of the qualified teaching staff because almost seventy-five percent of the lecturers were from Sudan. Then, they were not likely to move to South Sudan to continue teaching in their former universities after the secession of the Republic of South Sudan from Sudan, so this was the problem number one for HE. This change was abrupt and it affected all the universities after they were re-allocated them from Sudan to South Sudan (Abol, 2015).

3:3. Poor Planning and Budgeting of Fund for HEIs

There is poor planning and budgeting of fund for HEIs and this is the big problem facing HE due to lack of prior proper planning in the Ministries of education and finance. It is very important to be noted that hostilities exacerbate the country’s economic woes. South Sudan relies on oil for 98 per cent of its income, but most of that oil is in the Upper Nile region, the Centre of the fighting. Oil production has been slashed from 490,000 barrels a day in 2011 to 220,000 in late 2016. The majority of economic and social development indicators are among the worst in the world as a consequence of neglect by the former authorities prior to independence, institutional weaknesses, and political instability. This plus the plunge in global oil prices placed serious constraints on state funding of higher education (World Bank 2016). The low price of crude oil has also taken its toll according to the World Bank, South Sudan’s gross domestic product shrank by 6.5 per cent in 2015. Spending on higher education has consistently remained below 1 per cent of the government’s total budget. Against all the odds, however, the country’s five national universities continue to provide education to approximately 19,000 undergraduate and 1,000 postgraduate students, as well as rendering other vital services to the wider polity during this crisis (Abol, 2015).

3:4. Recruitment, Appointment and promotion of Teaching and Non-teaching Staff

There is wrong or call it corruption in recruitment, appointment and promotion of the HEIs managers such as VCs and their DVCs, I have pointed out that quality academic, highly qualified and knowledgeable staffs are dominant to construction a strong and well-functioning university. This means recruitment, appointments and promotion of potential candidates and existing ones must be done professionally by sometimes, the president and VCs do it in unexpected way. South Sudan universities therefore should avoid frustration and tardiness of appointment and promotion process and foster transparency, by ensuring that they are devolved to faculties, and anchored in a representative committee system at every level’ (Tettey 2006). Quite often senior academics retire from public institutions when they are still very productive. In this regard universities should reconsider the retirement age for academics at least, as a short-term measure to ensure that the institutions are staffed by qualified personnel until long term solutions are found. Indeed, there is a common saying in Africa that ‘we have several Professors who retired from public universities but are not tired’. They can still be engaged on contractual terms both in public and private universities to mentor young scholars while at the same time attract research funding from international development partners through well-developed proposals.

3:5. Research Centers, Publications and innovations

There are no research and publication centers in the country, the current situation in South Sudan shows that the research element of higher education has continued to be ignored although it is research that differentiates a university from other institutions of learning. Funding for research has become more difficult to access since 2011. As university income streams shift away from government due to the bankruptcy of the government, universities has no other to look to earn income from outside of simple one‑way government funding, working with new partners and organizations to diversify the money they use to underpin research is another problem because most of International NGOs are only dealing either primary or secondary school education neglecting the higher education. The HEIs have failed to share any updates on research and innovations. In future provision of funds through NCHE to be competed for by researchers may eradicate non-response (Abol, 2017).

3:6. Low payments of teaching and non-teaching staffs’ salaries for HEIs.

Another factor facing HEIs is usual delay and low payment of professors and lecturers’ salary in South Sudan that sometime it leads into strike for example in April 2016, Professors and lecturers in South Sudan’s five public universities were on strike for almost 3 weeks, because the government has not paid their back salaries for the past three months and other benefits for the past year. Apollo said the lecturers’ unpaid salaries total nearly 28 million South Sudanese pounds ($4.6 million). He said the strike will impact students. Therefore, lecturer’ salary is a very big issue facing HEIs’ Administration and Management. Low salaries, and delayed salary payments, rendering the teaching profession unattractive and jeopardizing the delivery of good education. Teacher salary is not increase and is now lower than those of the police, military personnel, and security guards, professions that have all recently received large pay increases. The rapid depreciation of the value of the SSP against the US dollar and high levels of inflation are further eroding the purchasing power of teachers (Prof, John Akech, 2018).

3:7. Poor Administration and Management for the HEIs

Sometimes, Hon. Minister for HE dictates administrative issues and this prompted lecturers to lay down their tools and go for strike for example The HE’s Minister threatened teaching staff representative of the five public universities when they wrote their petition demanding their rears payment. He said that would punish those who would attempt to strike and this led to actual three-week strife and some lecturers resigned (John B., 2017).

3:8. Academic Productivity and the Development of a Strong University in World wide’s ranking list 

No any of South Sudanese universities has ever appeared either at regional or world’s university ranking, it due to poor admission of students this also includes initiating graduate programmes particularly training of PhD students. A PhD is considered to be research training and should be one of the valued preconditions to be considered for employment by a university in the 21st century. When a PhD holder eventually is promoted to a Professor, he/she is expected to provide academic leadership in designing teaching programmes, research, publication and dissemination of knowledge. For PhD supervision, professors should be grounded in research methodology in which both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis are encouraged. PhD students who integrate both methodologies are likely to produce better analysis of the identified research (Juba Monitor Newspaper 2016).

3:9. Language Barriers for Second Language Students 

Before the secession of South Sudan from Sudan the official language of Instructions was Arabic language. So students who had used to Arabic and when the country got its independence the Arabic language changed into English and all lectures were taught in English affected many Arabic background students and it facing lecturers to mark the students’ examination in term of grammatical writing (Prof Kuyok, 2017).

3:10. Physical Infrastructure 

The overall physical infrastructure for HEIs are few compare to the number of students enrolled, this still outmatched the available infrastructure. The physical infrastructure collectively refers to the facilities for both students and staff such as lecture rooms, libraries, and laboratories, working space for academic staff, recreation facilities, administration office space and accommodation for students feeding and health, leaving them to market forces and private provision so as to concentrate on core academic activities (Ministry of Infrastructure Report, 2016).

a). Lecture space

The overall picture shows that the total space available for learning very few compare to the currents number of students enrolled and lead into crowding and congestions of lecturing hall, sometimes it forced lecturers to prefer under tree lectures that can accommodation many students. Some institutions have maximized the use of available lecture space by having day and evening programmes activities (MoHEST Report, 2016).

b). Library space

All the five public universities have inadequate libraries together with staff and associated facilities, is crucial for higher education delivery. The new trend embraces use of e-resources to supplement physical libraries. However, given that HEIs still have limited access to ICT facilities, both options should therefore be used to supplement each other (MoHEST Report, 2016)

c). Laboratory space and computer usage 

The government believes in STEM development, but there is no improvements have been done especially in government institutions. In public HEIs, no more attention has been given to ICT laboratories ignoring laboratories for basic sciences yet these are equally inadequate. The private institutions tend to avoid physical sciences programmes mainly because of heavy capital investment required and resort to ICT. I urge that all stakeholders to partner with government and HEIs to design and develop a sustainable incentive to support science education. This initiative may encourage public institutions to promote science programmes and to develop laboratories and workshops in these institutions problems problem.

d). Office space  

There is inadequate office space in all the universities. Office space refers to space occupied for administrative purpose such as space for departmental heads, staffrooms as well as areas for students to consult with staff on academic issues. The statistics show that HEIs do not have adequate space for academic staff, administrators and students’ guilds. In a number of institutions, including universities, sharing an office between four to ten members of staff has become the custom. In extreme cases, academic staff operates in common rooms with no space for private study and student consultation. I suggested that the government should do something about office space for the HEIs.

e). Halls of residence and student welfare

There are no residences and students welfares, but the modern approach to higher education is for institutions to divest from student welfare activities such as accommodation, feeding and health, leaving them to market forces and private provision so as to concentrate on core academic activities. It is however not possible to pull out completely from issues of students’ welfare for the following key reasons;

1. First, students with disabilities deserve special provision that private providers may not be able or willing to offer.
2. Secondly, institutions located in rural areas, where private accommodation and facilities may not be easily available, are duty bound to give students welfare facilities.
3. Thirdly, even where private sector student welfare is readily available, the institutions have a duty to oversee that the facilities are conducive to a proper learning environment.

The general observation is that the available student accommodation in many public and private universities and colleges falls short of expectations. Hostels tend to be crowded, located in environments non-conducive for learners and often lack security controls. Poor accommodation can lead to serious disciplinary problems, disrupting teaching and learning activities, destroying and causing health problems for students, including mental breakdowns. It therefore remains a duty of the HEIs to ensure that the hostels students stay in meet the standards for student study.

3:11. Implications of Existence and Non-existence of Staff Profiles on University Websites

Universities in South Sudan did not have enriched academic staff profiles posted on their websites. This weakness puts the universities in a disadvantaged position at region level and beyond. A university whose best brains (in terms of staff) are not known to a network of other scholars will not be attractive to them. How will students from other countries be attracted if they cannot find the faculty members who would supervise them in their field of interest? In an era of globalization, where the Internet is a major source of information for opportunities, staff profiles that are made public would attract more students and increase enrollment. Increased enrollment from a wide spectrum is likely to attract the best of the brightest into various programmes. This is likely to increase international linkages in terms of research, joint degrees and funding. African universities therefore must embark quickly on this important undertaking in order to compete and become world-class universities. Again to borrow a word of wisdom form Hsuan Feng (2007:68), ‘for better or for worse, knowledge is now bought and sold as a commodity. Research institutes, think tanks and consulting firms are all new competitors to Universities in the knowledge economy’. Universities in South Sudan cannot continue to avoid enriching their websites with academic staff profiles, which are critical in the competition referred to above.

3:12. Copied and Pasted Curriculum from Sudan.

There was no South Sudanese’ original curriculum since 2011, but the nation has been using Sudanese’ curriculum that was what the country use to copy and pasted which is more Arabized and Islamized because the history and culture were there, were all about arabization and Islamization of Sudan, which is not matching with South Sudanese and Christian culture.

3:13. No retention of qualified Academic Staff

We in South Sudan, universities are losing scholars to the Diaspora, NGOs or private companies or civil society organizations. Teaching staffs are employs and after while they resign and join well-paid jobs either in NGOs or private sectors. This is one the problem facing HEIs sector due to low payment of teaching staff. Most of the TAs and Lecturers deserted the university job and go for green pastures especially to NGO sectors to get enough money for their families. This affect the universities in South Sudan because NGOs pay well compare to the government (John Gerang, 2017).

3:14. Issue of feeding program

Students feeding program had been an issue for some of the universities facing the universities, contractors sometimes delays to deliver food items to the university and this angered students and causes chaos such as strife etc.

4:1. Discussion or Argumentative Points 

Despite limited funding in higher education subsector, I recommends that HEIs should set their priorities right. Some of the priorities may not be capital intensive while others can be implemented in a phased manner step by step. The below are my argumentative points of view;

1. First and foremost; the Government should work hard to implement everlasting peace which was recently last year because peace can bring sustainable development including HEIs, because war is the factor number that annihilated the HE’s progress, for example in war people lose both lives and properties.
2. Secondly; financial planners should have a clear HEIs’ data for example; physical data relating to enrolments and other quantities, financial data relating to costs and expenditure, and economic data relating to the economy as a whole. This following data is very important to the Ministries of Finance and Education and they should know the data of each of the following; the Labor force e.g. number of teaching staff and non-teaching staff, raw materials e.g. students, commutable materials and so on. Service e.g. Medicines, electricity, water, postal and communications, because what brought all these challenges in HEIs administration is poor planning and budgeting.
3. Recruitment and appointments of teaching and none teaching staff should be based on academic qualifications and experiences, not by who is loyal to the regime or whom you know, appointing teaching and management staffs should be by merits by doing this it can encourage the development for the HEIs. The educational system has several elements and each has their own special position. The main elements in higher education are professors, students and educational environment. Therefore disorder in each of these three elements causes a drop in educational quality. But none equal the element called “professor”. Through professor performance, educational system applies its own role on learners, therefore usefulness or sterilization of educational programs will depend on the action of the professor. The role and function of a professor is increasingly considered in recent years, because professors must be responsive to both the needs of students and the needs of society. University lecturers are of the most basic capitals of universities. University professors on one hand are responsible for the correct transfer of scientific concepts and on the other hand for human and practical model of ethical values in work environments. A good professor should have numerous features to be able to gain the credibility and reputation of an educational institution. Therefore identifying the desirable characteristics of a lecturer has a great importance and is prior to other factors including recognition of learner. Behavior and performance of professors in the educational environment is judged by different groups. Meanwhile because of direct participation in educational situation, students have a closer relationship than other judging factors and their kind of attitude about the characteristics of a desirable professor can have a significant impact in the learning process. The evaluation subject of faculty members by the students at the universities always has been as a matter of discussion. Evaluation of professors by students can be a valuable source for improving educational quality. Evaluation is a process which examines the professors’ skill and is considered as the most complex type of evaluation. Checking the work quality of university lecturers as teachers of higher education of the country is among the most important issues that on the one hand provides appropriate feedback in fundamental decision makings, analysis of educational issues and comprehensive and strategic planning for education authorities and on the other hand put under consideration the control over the content, classroom management, communication with student, taking advantage of educational skill and having appropriate behaviors in class that each of them are of factors influencing the effectiveness of teaching. Hence this study aimed to determining the factors affecting the teaching quality at one of South Sudanese’ universities.
4. Quality research, Juba University must recruit and retain quality academic staff for higher productivity. What should be done to recreate a research University in South Sudan with academic staff capable of carrying out productive research not only generating knowledge, but also for consumption of policy makers and implementers on the continent? Using documentary evidence from published works, University data bases available on the Internet, this paper carries out a thematic analysis of the Juba University historically, the challenges it has faced in recruiting and retaining quality academic staff and the necessary interventions that would recreate the research University for better academic service delivery and development.
5. The HEIs need to diversify their sources of funding to minimize dependence on tuition fees. Higher education institutions need to review their priority expenditure areas in line with core functions of the university. They should become more flexible when it comes to funding. Although education funding has traditionally been term based – which limits administration’s ability to progress at an advanced pace – governments should consider more flexible funding mechanisms that support students as they progress from one course to another based on demonstrated mastery, rather than rigid spring and fall terms
6. I urge HEIs to revamp collaborative research in universities so as to develop or improve research capacity and standards in all universities alike. The higher education institutions should make it a policy to deliberately sponsor at least one academic staff for PhD from each faculty or school every year and should make lobbying from different for more scholarships In addition, there is need to ensure these graduates are employable.
7. I suggest that Government should concentrate on 5 five universities infrastructure and facilities, but revise many OTIs to make limited resources available creating first class institutions which, will act as model centers.
8. The critical issue relates to increase in science enrolment; institutions offering basic sciences and medical programmes are ill equipped to train scientists and medical personnel. There is need to re-equip institutional laboratories and also develop an incentive scheme to encourage. Institutions must step-up access and usage of computer to the minimum standards set by the NCHE; improve on internet bandwidth and connectivity through hotspots etc. Stakeholders should partner with higher education institutions so as to improve access to computers and Internet.
9. HEIs Management should employ someone who can create and develop Staff Profiles on University Websites and should manage it to promote the university.
10. Lastly, Administration should also employ project proposal writer and this person should be assigned to write many projects and submit them to different NGOs and universities in developed countries like China, USA and UK that are dealing in Higher Education because it is lack of project proposals that is why the universities are collapsing.
11. An institution that has poor managementpersonnel in place has multiple problems. Eventually, this affects the overall aesthetic of a business as poor reviews come in and employees begin to quit unannounced. What made all HEIs poor and weak is lack of effective management and administration. So it is important to employ the right management personalities and skills for what the particular institution needs. Innovative ideas in mind to change things around at the office to increase productivity, create a happy workforce and increase successes due to elevated morale. Internal promotions often create stronger workforces and healthier companies.

Recommendations; Areas for policy Implications (Inform HE Policy)

1. Funding: There is need to devise diverse resource mobilization strategies for higher education. This may include including state funding, especially for the facilities, infrastructure and capacity development of lecturer.
2. Rise in the number of Universities: there is need to revisit the categorization of Universities. Many institutions are changing eminence to Universities and there has also been increase by 5-hierarchy of research based universities and teacher base universities, community colleges and elite institutions.
3. Gender Parity: Mechanisms to improve on the percentage of female participants needs to be put in place – Programs for accreditation: the accreditation of new programs should be harmonized with the national human resource audit/ plan by encouraging HEI to come up with programs that are in sync with the future demand of human resources.
4. Research: There should be a national research fund (funded by the state and its partners) to be competed for by the various institutions to build the research capacity of institutions, and focusing on national priorities.
5. PhD Production: There is need for a 10 year rapid national PhD production process to create a critical mass of PhD holders.
6. Improve on internet bandwidth and connectivity to ease e-library functionality
7. Payment of salaries and governance of universities.
8. University ranking and score card should be considered.
9. Computer and physical facilities misses use of mobile phones, laptops and i-pads.
10. Online studies and policy guidelines seem nonexistent yet this is the trend for the sector.
11. Automation of data collection instrument
12. Increment of teaching/ academic and non-teaching staff’s remunerations and other benefits such as chalk, medical, feeding and accommodation allowances; This can rise teaching moral because a professor or lecturer cannot teach well when stomach is empty.

Therefore, government should allocate more fund to the higher education because it is the key toward the development.

Conclusions

The MoHEST should allocate some enough money to the HE sector according to data and all should be commuted in term of dollars or South Sudanese pounds. Therefore, prior preparation and proper planning, for budgeting should be done by the Ministries of Finances and Educations at national level in order to have a standardized system of education in the country. Therefore, South Sudan needs massive reforms in the planning and budgeting in the Ministries of Finance and Education by putting more money in this sector, this will make the great difference because education is a debt that the present generations owe to future generations.

The author, Ustaz John Gerang Ayii Riak, is a Teaching Assistant, Dr. John Gerang Memorial University Science and Technology in Bor, Jonglei State, Republic of South Sudan. He can be reached via his email: John Garang Ayii <johngayii2014@gmail.com>

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