The war is systemically eliminating pathways for education, normalising a future where learning becomes a privilege of the few.
Education in Sudan has been not only an essential service but a means of certifying who should operate with authority in society and in what ways. In the colonial period, graduates of Gordon College operated as part of the state and later took power at independence. Those who studied at the University of Khartoum in early independence, too, went on to be political leaders and control halls of power. And now, in the midst of a counter-revolutionary war in which all armed parties target civilians, pathways for education are being systemically eliminated for the general population. Discussing education at a moment of extreme violence feels like a luxury—who can read when others are starving or being murdered? Yet it is essential to do so now, for if not, when this war ends, new circumstances will be normalised, ones that systemically limit education to a select few and restrict the ability of the people to act socially or politically.
Origins of the Current Crisis
The circumstances that have led to this can be traced to education reforms from the early 1990s at the outset of the Ingaz regime. Great attention has been given to their reforms of higher education—eliminating university autonomy, expanding institutions of higher education while underfunding them so that those teaching were ill-equipped to deliver quality education. A decade later, this was followed by the establishment of private institutions of higher education, creating an unequal system where those with means could obtain a stronger education while those without were taught in a deeply burdened system by unsupported faculty. More young people received university degrees, but the environments in which they studied were marked by inequality in a way that previous university spaces were not.
Just as dangerous for the long term were the changes initiated at the level of primary and secondary education. Responsibility for primary education was moved to the level of the locality, with secondary education seen by the state. Justified as a move towards federalism and devolution of powers, in practice this move shifted financial responsibility from the central government to that of the locality and states. States and localities were expected to raise their own funds, and after passing along a portion of their earnings to the federal government, use remaining funds for their children’s schools. This semi-privatised education codified regional inequalities. In the absence of adequate income to fund schools, government schools, once low cost or free, began requiring a host of fees—for enrolment, for sitting exams, for school supplies. Meanwhile, states and localities with more resources, largely those with a substantial existing population of secondary school and university graduates, were able to invest materially in the education system. By contrast, states and localities in more marginalised regions faced limited resources and, over the subsequent years, war.
These changes did not introduce inequality to the education system, but they did transform the nature of those inequalities. In the colonial and early independence period, education itself was a privilege. Access to it was determined in part by location and social status, as infrastructure for it, especially at the secondary and tertiary levels, was limited. Yet once admitted, families did not have to provide large-scale funds to assure their children’s continuation, provided their children excelled. This new system, which expanded education into many communities, tended to exacerbate the degree of regional inequality across the population. Many more students were able to access education. Yet almost all of those students lived in regions that were already advantaged.
The system also introduced gradients of inequality among those who have access to education. It became not only a question of sending students to school, but also (especially in cities) which school, with which quality of education. These choices became more severe as students advanced, with more choices on where to study, whether in their home state or Khartoum, as well as whether to study at a public or a private university. Families know that these decisions determine the choices and opportunities available to their children.
This was all pursued alongside a mass impoverishment of teachers. At the university level, expansion of the higher education system came with a devaluation of the salaries of teaching staff, making it difficult for university lecturers to make ends meet. Private universities, while sometimes offering higher quality education to their students, often paid faculty on more insecure contracts, creating economic precarity for lecturers that had not existed previously. Meanwhile, primary and secondary school teachers were paid salaries that never caught up with inflation and even before the war amounted to lower than the international poverty level. As wages for teaching remained low, teaching became increasingly the work of women—by 2019, over 70% of all teachers were women. This feminisation of the education system has been further used to excuse poor wages and working conditions for teachers.
Revolution, Coup, and Education
This entire system was put under stress by the end of Ingaz, and that stress escalated after the December revolution. When the revolution began, universities were all shut down quickly, later followed by secondary schools. As protests escalated, even basic schools were often forced to close. It was only after the transitional agreement that government universities reopened and most schools could be assured of an uninterrupted educational week. Yet challenges continued—the COVID-19 pandemic once again forced the closure of schools and universities for long periods.
The 2021 coup, as well, disrupted education; while universities largely remained open, the closure of the internet and a faculty strike at the University of Khartoum stopped education for some time. At the basic and secondary level, schools were forced to close regularly for protests in Khartoum and in many of the cities where activities against the coup took place. Those in Darfur and Blue Nile faced school closures due to conflict and ongoing violence, which displaced many and closed schools.
For students at all levels, these upheavals have been hard. Many know university students, particularly those at government universities, who took seven, eight, or even ten years to complete a five-year degree programme through no fault of their own. Yet the greatest challenge for education has not been for the youngest of the “stubborn generation” who led the revolution, but their younger siblings, who have faced an existential threat to their ability to proceed through education systems at all.
A cohort of students who were in grade 3 in 2018 thus faced long-delayed, interrupted education over the course of the next four and a half years, delaying their ability to proceed through grades 4 through 8 and complete basic education. During that time, they were out of school for long periods, and while in school, often missed days on a weekly basis with no warning, particularly those in urban areas. Many of those in rural areas missed out on years due to conflict-related upheavals and delays in paying their teachers. And then the 2023 war began, and the majority lost access to any education at all.
Seeking Schooling During War
Education has become a disputed symbol of legitimacy, with both the RSF and SAF using schools as proof of sovereignty.
The outbreak of the April 2023 war accelerated these problems to the point of fracture. Institutions of higher education were caught off-guard and highly affected due to their concentration in Khartoum and other urban areas. Their direct oversight by the federal government has meant that they have remained entirely under the oversight of the Port Sudan government, and the federal government has exerted only limited resources to maintain a skeleton system. They have done this not out of a belief in the need for higher education, but as a symbol of their legitimacy as the holders of power in a unified Sudanese state.
Maintaining this system, even in skeleton form, took significant work by many dedicated individuals. The outbreak of war meant that many universities and colleges lost access to their records and their facilities were severely damaged. Yet quickly, universities worked to operate online, holding examinations in key locations in and outside Sudan. Faculty worked for two years receiving 60% of their devalued salaries in arrears. In areas controlled by the RSF, university functioning disappeared, with administrative activity relocated to SAF-controlled areas and online course offerings attended by the small number of students able to gain sufficient internet access, taught by teachers in similar levels of hardship. This was a fragile, imperilled system held up by the labour of dedicated educators and administrators with minimal support from a government that used the system to assert its own legitimacy.
Basic and secondary education in Sudan have become disputed symbols of legitimacy, with both the RSF and SAF using them as proof of sovereignty, leaving schools, teachers, and students the victims of policies designed to advance the interests of rival militant governments. Since these levels were controlled at the locality and state level, both parties have used control over education, alongside control over territory, as a means of legitimising their claims to sovereign statehood. This has appeared through targeting teachers and institutions, such as in the case of RSF targeting teachers collecting a salary from the SAF-controlled education apparatus. It has also appeared through excluding and marginalising students accessing education from beyond the control of an armed party, such as with the national secondary school certificate exams, which made no provision for students unable to travel to SAF-controlled territory.
Neither the RSF nor SAF have used their own material resources for education. This is unsurprising for the RSF, whose forces rely on systemic looting as a means of sustaining and propelling its soldiers, and whose government exists largely outside Sudan. While the RSF has used SARHO to attempt to leverage funds from the international community for rebuilding educational infrastructure, it does not pay civil employees, including teachers and a potential parallel Ministry of Education. Whatever schools exist in RSF areas are consequently either initiated and organised by local communities or international entities.
More dangerous has been the fragmentation of education in areas controlled by SAF. SAF inherited and controls the existing state apparatus, and through the Ministry of Education holds capacity to address education and preserve the education system. Yet this government has relied in large part on private entities, such as companies exercising social responsibility, and international aid to maintain the system, leaving individual states and localities to face their own challenges.
That any schools have remained open at all is a testament to the values and labour of Sudanese communities.
At the outset of war, the Federal Ministry of Education moved large units to Atbara with the support of private companies with connections to River Nile state. Because salaries and school funds came through state revenue, many states stopped paying salaries to government teachers for months on end, while a few were able to obtain the funds through local revenue, private donations, and international humanitarian and developmental support. Simultaneously, school grounds began to be used as shelters for displaced people. This has created large divergences in the system, with a few states equipped with almost adequate resources and many others unable to teach in whole or in part.
That any schools have remained open at all is a testament to the values and labour of Sudanese communities, who have remained convinced of the value of education. Since the 1990s, parent-teacher associations have taken prominence in leading the way for advocating for their students and raising funds to keep their children’s schools open. Since the war, even more has been asked of these associations. While in 2016 roughly 11–12% of all teachers were “volunteers,” supported through community efforts, almost all teachers now have become volunteers for some length of time.
Neoliberal Pressures, Counter-Revolution, and Prospects for the Future
What teachers are paid and what students must pay to access education are political decisions, not economic necessities.
There is real danger in the coming years that this war and the armed parties fighting it will normalise a paradigm in which the state is not responsible for funding or maintaining an education system. We already see indications of this in the Ministry of Finance’s funding decisions for the education system. By withdrawing from funding basic and secondary education and allowing states to rely almost entirely on international funds, the Port Sudan government is tacitly allowing for a contraction of the education system. This is portrayed as an apolitical necessity in a time of war—but it is political, a statement of state priorities.
Decisions made for primary and secondary schools affect higher education as well. Universities have been kept open so far at a skeleton level, but the announcement of fees for universities this academic year includes extremely high prices. The most severe increase is for the University of Khartoum’s medical programme, which will charge twenty-five million Sudanese pounds for domestic students. Even other programmes at universities in Khartoum are charging between four and six million pounds for their medical programmes, rates that remain prohibitive for many students across the country and at least triple the costs from 2010. These increases happen as applications and admissions to universities decline, with many students who would have applied unable to do so either because of their families’ personal circumstances or their inability to afford university fees at this disastrous time.
Low enrolment may well be used as a pretext to further increase university fees on the basis that revenue from student enrolment is lower and institutions require more per student to continue. Such decisions create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which enrolments decline further due to the fees being out of reach of students. As this proceeds, low enrolments could also be used as a justification for closing down or reducing the size of universities due to lack of use. Such measures will accompany a severe contraction in the number of students receiving education through the secondary or even the basic level, since the number of schools open over the past two and a half years has been so low.
Decisions on what teachers are paid and what students must pay to access education are political, and the decision to pay them so low is ideological, adhering to neoliberal logics. Teachers at Sudanese schools do not have to be paid poverty wages—they are paid these wages because the government does not want to pay higher. Similarly, students do not have to pay such high fees—and universities do not have to be self-sustaining through university fees.
At this moment of crisis, a Sudanese government could do the opposite. It could invest in education and demand better for all students. It could fund education at all levels and preserve existing educational infrastructure. But this will only come through political pressure from Sudanese communities. The international community speaks in technical terms of the results of state policies, but advocacy for priorities must come from the Sudanese people themselves.
It is on Sudanese communities to push back: to assert that all young people deserve access to education. Without it, only the gun will remain to designate authority in political debates, stripping away the wins of the December revolution over the long term. Education not only assures futures for young people, but for Sudanese society and civic politics as a whole.
