South Sudan: Good Education Protects the Country; Bad Education becomes Culprit of the Law
8 min read
Congratulations to every Graduate of Starford International University of South Sudan
By Ariik Kuol Ariik Mawien, Kapoeta, South Sudan
Monday, January 11, 2021 (PW) — My Dear Fellow Citizens, with great joy and honor, I take this opportunity to congratulate every graduate from every College and Department of Starford International University of South Sudan for the tremendous achievement made over the last four years Programme. Without reflecting your geopgraphical backgrounds, I mostly prefer to acknowledge you as South Sudanese citizens who have achieved great goal for our Country and whose achievements overwhelmed us to celebrate today on Saturday Dec 12, 2020 at Freedom Hall in Juba. It is a unique moment for our Country, our communities, families and the host University (Starford) to have dedicated this day and publicly certify you as members of Graduate Community.
On this great event, my special recognition goes to your Lecturers who have spent much of their valuable time in preparing you for this historical day. I duly acknowledged moral & material supports rendered to you by your beloved families, friends and people of good will. Surely, it was through their unwavering sacrifices you managed to successfully reach this day. Congratulations to every hand who have supported these Young Graduates to academically grow and progress up to this level.
It has been wonderful moment for you to Wear Graduation Gowns for the first time in life. But the Question is, ” Does your Education contains blessings and good values that protect the Country and her citizens or Bad Characters that become curse and culprit of the Law?” This is a major question that every Graduate should ask him/herself in silent and answer it in action. This has been one of the great challenges to most of our past and current Graduates in South Sudan. Many South Sudanese Nationals graduated within and from most renowned Universities across the globe with different levels of Certificates such as Under-Graduate, Post-Graduate Degrees and PHDs respectively. Such levels of Education can only add more blessings and protect the Country and her citizens if government:
1. Build Hospitals, equip them with neccessary materials and hire our Doctors. South Sudan is rich in number of young physicians well trained from within and out the Country. They have knowledge and skills to carryout body analysis, diagnose, operate, prescribe and treat patients more efficiently than Foreign presumed Doctors. Since Independence in 2011, South Sudan lost most of her powerful citizens in the hands of Foreign Doctors within and outside the Country. Simply, we ignored our own Hospitals and mistrusted our own Doctors leaving them undeveloped. More citizens shall continue dying if we don’t turn our faces to ourselves. If we embark on the Development of our local health Institutions and trust our own Doctors, we will save more lives, appreciate the value of our own Education and raise our confidence.
2. Contract our own Engineers to carryout and supervise any form of Infrastructure in the Country. South Sudan has number of first class civil, mechanical, electrical, Architects and electronics Engineers respectively. These categories of Engineers can construct our roads, railway lines, Airports, River Ports, permanent houses, Hospitals, schools, Hydro Power Stations, Radios and TV Sations, satellite Networks and mechanical garages of all kinds in the Country. For instance, 45% of permanent houses in Khartoum were designed and built by South Sudanese Engineers. Currently, Chinese, Ugandans, Kenyan and Ethiopians are our known qualified Engineers when they are really learners in the field of engineering. It would not be disputed if I say, houses, schools and Hospitals built in our Country by Ugandans since 2006 are collapsing now. Chinese Shandong Nile Investment applied Asphalt on Bahr el ghazal Highway in 2020 and completely washed away by rain in less than 48 hours. But, the city tarmac applied by ABMC in Juba is still holding up to date.
3. Employ fresh Economists, Statisticians, Accountants and Administrators to manage our National Economy. There is huge number of young Economists, Statisticians, Accountants and Administrators in this Country. If given chances, they can do remarkable achievements reflecting on their brilliant, fertile and virgin knowledge they accumulated for so long time. They know by details what is wrong and what can be done in regards to economic instability. For example, no County in the world can be economically viable when importing 100% and export 0.001%. When inflation rate is 350%, 45% of the Country’s population living at Refugee camps without production, Country owing 55% of Foreign debts (loans from Foreign Banks) and 70% of oil & Non oil revenues going into private pockets.
4. Employ Teachers who are Graduates from University and pay them well. Quality Education is the only way forward. Government should upgrade Education system from substandard to more standard and complex type of learning system throughout the Country. In this case, University Graduates shall teach at every high school level to strengthen Foundation and raise learners’ performances. The duty of the government and the community is to ensure security and provide super scale payments for them. If private schools are bringing Foreign teachers from abroad and pay them in Dollars, why not our own sons and daughters of this Country?. Government should do something to strengthen the standard of general Education. For example, two third of our students reach University level through cheating during National Examinations of the Certificate of Secondary Education. That is why, most of them gets an average of 3-5 suplementaries or repeated every Academic year in different Universities across the Country.
5. Provide many Lawyers to ensure legal system is established. There is high rate of intended crimes and impunities against innocent citizens in the Country. Government must ensure accountability and Justice are fully upheld by arranging every suspect of murder, corruption, any other Criminal and Social crimes before competent courts made available in every state and County.
However, bad Education can become culprit of the Law in the following ways.
1. Promote corruption. If educated person deals in activities that compromise efforts of transparency, accountability, choose to operate in isolation of light (doing things in darkness) and try to avoid justice for his/her gross misconducts while managing public resources. This type of Education is harmful and culprit of the Law.
2. Ethnic divisions. Most of the South Sudanese intellectuals are much involved in dividing the Country on tribal basis and creating long last hatred among citizens just to keep themselves in power. Majority of them choose to invest on innocent blood in order to buy another chance in government. This can be proven right when revisiting the case of those who rebelled, killed hundreds of innocent citizens and genuinely rewarded with fate positions after conflict without Justice for the victims. That is what I mean by, ” invest on blood to buy another chance”. Such Education is both a curse and culprit of the Law.
Conclusion,
Fellow citizens, I am extremely excited by your graduation which you have just celebrated today on Saturday Dec 12, 2020 at Freedom Hall in Juba. It is a great moment for our country, host University (Starford) communities and families to have witnessed this day dedicated to you and capture our National News Headline. Every valuable support rendered to you by your families, Lecturers, friends and people of good will is duly acknowledged at this point. I know without them, you would have not registered your final happiness today.
On the same note, I would like to Appeal to the government of South Sudan to start recognizing our own Graduates of different Colleges and Departments from across different Universities in the Country and employ them in accordance to urgent need of every sector. As a Country, we must develop faith and trust in our own National products and equip them further with knowledge and skills through intensive trainings.
To save more lives, we must trust our own Doctors, listen to their health advises, implement their recommendations towards needs of our Hospitals and health centres, provide essential medical equipment and avoid seeking treatment from outside. We must also empower our local Engineers of different kinds to work and supervise our physical infrastructures like roads, Airports and other technical projects in the Country.
Allow young Economists, Statisticians, Accountants and Administrators to participate in National Policy platforms to develop ways of restoring, improving, stabilizing and diversifying our National economy. They will help identifying positive economics indicators, strengthen the derailing financial system, evaluate open market operations, redetemine exchange rate policy and restore purchasing power of our local currency (SSP).
Government must also improve system of General Education and appoint University Graduates as teachers in every High school level. By doing that, standard of our students will be achieved where Country produces qualified labour force that would definitely deliver quality output for the country and freely competes with other Nationals in Labour Markets without difficulties and limitations. The government would therefore ensure security and heavy payments for such teachers to maintain them in teaching carreer.
Inside the nutshell, government should deploy more Lawyers in every state and County to ensure legal framework is existing in every corner of the Country to avoid legal vacuum in some parts of the Country. Government should avoid delaying cases, since people believes, “Justice delayed is Justice denied some times. General public demands accountability and justice for every victim of corruption and murder for their culprits to stand trial before any competent Court arrange by the Government.
South sudanese of different occupations such primary and secondary school teachers, Universiry Lecturers, Civilians, Faith Based, Community Chiefs, Members of organized Forces, Security and Army have been innocently murdered on different angles of life. The act of compensating murderers and war lords with fate positions after mercilessly investing on innocent blood just to buy more chances from the government without propare accountability and Justice, must stop immediately. Therefore, it would display spirit of good will if government genuinely protects lives and properties of every citizen.
The Author, Ariik Kuol Ariik Mawien, Holds Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Development and Community Studies (2018/2019) and Bachelor’s of Science in Economics (2013-2017) from Rumbek University of Science and Technology (RUST). He Works as Journalist and opinions Writer and can be reached via contacts below: Email –
E-mail:ariikkuolariik@gmail.com; Twitter: @AriikKuolAriik Skype/WhatsApp: +211 (0) 923 650 380; Cell Phone:+211 (0) 928 187 790.
If you want to submit an opinion article, commentary, or news analysis, please email it to the editor: info@paanluelwel.com or paanluel2011@gmail.com. PaanLuel Wël Media (PW) website does reserve the right to edit or reject material before publication. Please include your full name, a short biography, email address, city, and the country you are writing from.
About Post Author
