The academic community and other stakeholders in Sudan’s higher education sector are supporting students who have been protesting fee increases since the beginning of 2023 and have attributed the underfunding of universities to the “coup government” as protesting students are rallying against the increasing cost of tuition at universities.
In a statement on January 7, the Alliance of Forces for Radical Change (AFRC) urged its members to collaborate with student movements that oppose increases.
According to the El Gedaref Salvation Initiative (GSI), students at the Sudan University of Science and Technology and the University of Khartoum have been protesting tuition increases.
In a statement, it criticized the extent of increases at Gedaref University.
For instance, female Gedaref University students’ boarding fees increased by approximately 1,000 per cent, going from 3,000 Sudanese pounds (US$ 5.24) to 40,000 Sudanese pounds (US$ 69.81).
The statement states that female rural students may be forced to drop out as a result of the increase in dormitory fees.
The increases in the university’s admission fees have ranged from 150,000 pounds (US$ 261.78) to 300,000 pounds (523,56 USD).
The Alliance of Professors of the University of Science and Technology (APUST) also announced on January 4 that it would not support raises.
APUST urged the administration of the university to sit down with the students and listen to their “legitimate demands and strive to solve them, instead of creating larger problems that could lead to the university’s teaching process being suspended for an unknown period,”
Additionally, in a previous statement, the Alliance of Bahri University Professors stated, “A firm stand must be taken by all university professors in defense of the rights of their students to education.”
In a statement on December 28, 2022, the University of Khartoum Teaching Staff Trade Union (UKTSTU) stated that the government’s level of subsidization of higher education barely covered academic salaries.
“We find that the state’s budget for scientific research and higher education does not exceed 18% of the proposed budget on the ground. Additionally, the budget was reduced from US$ 225 million in 2007 to approximately US$ 50 million in the budget for 2022,” the UKTSTU announced.
“The higher education sector is being “impoverished” by these policies, and it will eventually come to an end: modifying education rather than offering it as a service,” UKTSTU emphasized.
“In light of this circumstance, universities resorted to raising tuition fees for new students, especially considering that, in the best case scenario, tuition fees for advanced students should not exceed three thousand Sudanese pounds (US $5.24), in order to facilitate the academic process and cover high costs like electricity and others. “The university environment witnessed a clear deterioration, the delay in the purchase of laboratory materials, the reduction in the number of days spent on study trips,” UKTSTU explained.
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