In the aftermath of the war and the displacement that followed the events of April 15, 2023, Sudanese universities adopted online education while establishing a physical presence through external centres in Egypt, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia, as well as state-level centres in River Nile, Red Sea, Northern, Al-Gadarif and Kassala states, all controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
Examinations were held at these centres, giving many students an opportunity to complete their studies outside the country or away from states directly affected by the war.
As the SAF government has recently moved towards returning from Port Sudan to Khartoum, the Ministry of Higher Education has issued a series of decisions requiring the closure of external centres and the return of institutions to their original campuses.
In 2025, the then Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr Mohamed Hassan Dahab, issued a decision to close the external centres of public, non-profit and private universities, stressing the need to resume academic activities from within Sudan.
In June 2026, the current minister, Dr Ahmed Mudawi, issued a decision ordering all alternative and temporary centres to cease operations and return to their original premises no later than August 1, 2026. He warned that universities failing to comply could be barred from admitting new students for the current academic year.
The decisions have triggered widespread debate and divergent reactions among students, lecturers and parents. Atar spoke to a number of them, both inside and outside Sudan.
University of Khartoum
Lecturers at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Khartoum have decided to proceed with collective resignations through a unified memorandum, alongside individual resignations in accordance with established administrative procedures. In a statement, they stressed the “impossibility of holding examinations under the current circumstances, given the acute shortage of academic staff” — a position they said was confirmed by the prevailing view of the heads of departments who attended their meeting. “Accordingly, examinations will be postponed indefinitely until the academic requirements for holding them are met.”
On September 1, the steering committee of the University of Khartoum Teaching Staff Trade Union (UKTSTU) announced its solidarity with the Faculty of Medicine lecturers and its support for any escalatory measures decided by lecturers in each academic unit. In its statement, the committee said it had “approached the university administration on more than one occasion to discuss objective solutions that would ensure the continuation of the academic process, safeguard the rights of lecturers, students and staff, and preserve the institution’s stability. However, these communications received no response.”
On the same day, the university’s director met with lecturers currently in Khartoum. According to a letter from the Dean’s Office at the Faculty of Medicine to department heads, seen by Atar, the meeting’s key outcomes included “regularizing the work of the remaining lecturers on a monthly-contract basis and designing a form for lecturers to approve, with their contracts to be renewed immediately without any financial obligation on the university, alongside a commitment to double their salaries upon their return to the country and resumption of work.”
The meeting also agreed that the ongoing dispute should not affect students’ interests, examination schedules or graduation timelines. It further approved the appointment of Dr Al-Fatih Malik as head of the Department of Community Medicine and authorised positions in the departments of Paediatrics, Internal Medicine and Biochemistry.
The University of Khartoum opened the halls of its medical complex on August 2, 2026, without financial assistance from the government for reconstruction and rehabilitation works. The costs were covered entirely by the Sadaqat charitable organisation and a number of alumni. The university completed in-person examinations for all faculties on July 28, 2026, at the Faculty of Education complex in Omdurman. Its Academic Affairs Secretariat announced that classes would resume across all faculties on Tuesday, September 15, 2026.
The university is not currently prepared to receive students in person.
Dr A. A., University of Khartoum faculty member
For her part, “Dr A. A.”, a University of Khartoum faculty member, described the situation facing university lecturers under the current circumstances as “extremely complex”. Speaking to Atar, she explained that the crisis is not so much one of a shortage of academic staff as the absence of large numbers of lecturers, most of whom are outside Sudan, while only a small proportion remain in Khartoum.
Regarding reports that the Ministry of Higher Education had given university lecturers 45 days to return to work, alongside the University of Khartoum’s demand that its staff return, the faculty member considers the measure one of several means of pressuring lecturers to return without addressing the underlying conditions — chief among them housing and the wider living and security situation.
She added that some lecturers who had relied on accommodation outside the university’s housing system lost their homes during the war, while university housing in Burri, Al-Matar neighbourhood and Al-Amarat — 61st Street is no longer habitable because of extensive destruction.
“This is happening at a time when the university’s role in providing protection and social welfare to its staff has diminished,” she said. In her view, ordering lecturers to return under such circumstances could become a means of screening out or effectively excluding those inside and outside Sudan without providing genuine guarantees for resolving their circumstances.
She cautioned that the problem is not confined to individual cases. Some academic departments have more than 20 lecturers, she noted, “but only two or three of them are currently inside Sudan, making it extremely difficult for everyone to return within the allotted period.”
She also pointed to the university’s requirement that lecturers, administrative employees and workers appear in person to complete salary-payment procedures by signing before the university’s legal adviser between August 25 and 30. In practice, she said, this means depriving staff outside the country of their salaries — a form of pressure that could have particularly severe consequences for those in the most precarious economic circumstances.
The return order, she argues, may succeed with lecturers who are poorer, whose families are based in Khartoum or other relatively safe areas, or who have been unable to secure alternative sources of income.
“The university is not currently prepared to receive students in person,” Dr A. A. continued, “given the absence of genuine political will or sufficient funding to rebuild the damaged assets and infrastructure.” She explained that efforts to address the lecturers’ circumstances have largely been limited to housing and transportation allowances, leaving them to contend with the realities of the property and transport markets.
The faculty member acknowledged that many lecturers want to return, but said they do not know how they could realistically do so under the present conditions. Their salaries were already inadequate before the war, she noted, and there had been longstanding calls for reform of the salary structure. Today, with the cost of living soaring, their pay no longer covers even basic necessities.
On communication with students, the most critical component in maintaining academic continuity, Dr A. A. recalled that the university had established an online learning platform through which lecturers could communicate with students, deliver lectures online, and monitor their numbers and names.
“Although the experience did not work perfectly, it provided an important channel for academic communication,” she said. “Considerable technical efforts were made to train lecturers and students to use the platform and to upload lectures and course materials under wartime conditions. But with the decision to return to in-person teaching, use of the platform was suspended, without any clarification regarding its future or how it might continue.”
Asked whether continued delays in lecturers’ return could result in the accumulation of student cohorts and the loss of additional academic years, the faculty member rejected what she sees as an inaccurate diagnosis that places responsibility on lecturers.
She stressed that lecturers continued to perform their academic duties and conduct examinations under the extraordinarily difficult circumstances imposed by the war. The accumulation of student cohorts, she argues, is rooted primarily in the prolonged instability and political climate that preceded the war, dating back to 2018 and beyond.
That history has resulted in successive cohorts becoming identified with the political events of their time: the “Revolution cohort”, the “Hamdok cohort”, the “COVID cohort”, and the “Containers cohort” — the latter referring to the closure of bridges during protests against the October 25 coup.
She continued: “Despite these challenges, the teaching staff and students managed to overcome numerous obstacles and graduate three cohorts during the war. Examinations were coordinated to take place in ‘safe areas’, while professors and students relied on their own efforts and personal funds to secure transportation and accommodation.”
She went on: “The losses suffered by the academic sector are no longer limited to lost time and academic years. They have also extended to a decline in the quality of teaching and the loss of qualified personnel because of top-down decisions issued without field-level follow-up or efforts to adjust the circumstances of institutions and students on the ground.”
She pointed out that the repeated postponements of dates for resuming studies over the past year are evidence of shortcomings in decision-making and coordination.
Lecturers are prepared to continue teaching through ‘hybrid education’ to prevent further academic losses for students.
Dr A. A., University of Khartoum faculty member
Dr A. A. confirmed that lecturers are prepared to continue teaching through “hybrid education” to prevent further academic losses for students. At the same time, however, she stresses that the decision to return under the current circumstances, whether it is a political or academic decision, is neither realistic nor implementable without addressing the roots of the crisis and providing the minimum requirements for the educational process.
Commenting on the statement issued by lecturers at the University of Khartoum’s Faculty of Medicine on August 27, 2026, which called for the suspension and indefinite postponement of examinations, the immediate initiation of collective resignations through a unified memorandum alongside individual resignations, the launch of an organised media campaign, and urgent correspondence with the relevant authorities, Dr A. A., a faculty member at the University of Khartoum, said that lecturers in the university’s other faculties first received the statement through social media before the news was subsequently confirmed, including the decision to approve immediate resignations by majority vote.
However, the decision was not made in coordination with lecturers in the various faculties, nor was it discussed with the UKTSTU. This leaves the other faculties facing a choice between following the same path and voting through their respective faculty councils, or seeking a joint legal solution through the university’s faculty union committees.
By contrast, the faculty member noted that the UKTSTU has warned in several statements issued over the past two months that returning to in-person education, particularly in faculties such as medicine, engineering, science and applied disciplines in general, requires infrastructure and training institutions that are not currently available in sufficient capacity. Laboratories, hospitals, factories and institutions that previously hosted practical training have been damaged, in addition to problems involving libraries and a shortage of personnel capable of providing supervision.
Dr A. A. said that members of the University of Khartoum faculty have ruled out the possibility that the decisions of the ministry and university will be sufficient to convince lecturers to return to unstable conditions. “This applies both to those who have not been able to put their economic circumstances in order sufficiently to bear the costs of travelling to and settling in the capital, and to those who have managed to find other jobs and sources of income — especially since the university’s decision was not discussed with them through departmental councils.”
Marwa Al-Amin, a lecturer in the Faculty of Science, described the situation at the University of Khartoum to Atar: “Movement on the main campus (the Centre) is still slow, but there are defences of postgraduate students’ theses in the Faculty of Engineering. Most departments are currently concentrated at the Faculty of Education in Omdurman. The overall situation in Khartoum remains difficult. Transportation is available, but the streets are almost empty, and moving around the streets near the main campus requires caution.”
What Do the Students Say?
If I found a good opportunity in mining, I might leave my studies altogether.
Al-Sadig Fath Al-Majeed, civil engineering student at the University of Sudan
For its part, University of Sudan of Science and Technology announced on August 10, 2026, that it had held the first in-person PhD defence at the Faculty of Languages following its return to its campus. Classes also resumed at the Hillat-Koko campus, home to the Faculty of Animal Production Technology. Graduates of the Faculty of Business Studies launched an initiative to provide their faculty with solar-powered lighting.
Despite these academic and community initiatives at the University of Sudan, undergraduate students express concern about being forced into a different reality.
Speaking to Atar, Mohamed Hussein, a student at the University of Sudan’s Faculty of Business Studies, Department of Accounting, whose campus is at the Western Campus in Al-Mogran, said that studies still rely on distance learning, with no in-person lectures even for practical subjects such as statistics and accounting.
“The faculty has not actually implemented the decision to return to in-person teaching. At present, we are only preparing for examinations and registration. There are no ready dormitories or full accommodation services, and everyone is looking for private housing on their own,” he said.
As for Al-Sadig Fath Al-Majeed, a third-year civil engineering student at the University of Sudan who returned to Khartoum to sit for his examinations, he said he prefers continuing with online education. He told Atar that after being displaced to the village of Sidoon in River Nile State following the April 2023 war, he turned to agriculture and mining to help support his family.
He pointed out that a complete return could force him to reconsider his academic career, adding: “If I found a good opportunity in mining, I might leave my studies altogether.”
At Omdurman Islamic University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, however, Hassan Salih, a student in the 36th cohort, appears optimistic. He confirmed that they returned to the faculty’s campus in the Al-Fiteehab area on July 13, 2026, after the administration provided modern generators and carried out maintenance on the facilities and water systems.
“The university administration has made a commendable effort in carrying out maintenance work, and the work is still ongoing in the campus corridors and the affiliated faculties,” he told Atar.
Students Abroad and in the States
My daughter was studying at the Cairo centre and working to help me with living and rent expenses. We were not prepared for a sudden return after we had lost everything during the war.
Afaf Al-Amin, mother of a final-year medical student at Al-Yarmouk College
On the other hand, students outside Sudan and those in some state-based centres believe that the decision places significant financial burdens on them and creates major problems.
Speaking to Atar, Afaf Al-Amin, the mother of Inas, a final-year medical student at Al-Yarmouk College, said they were forced to return to Sudan after living in Cairo following a warning from the university that students would be dismissed if they were absent after July 15, 2026.
“My daughter was studying at the Cairo centre and working to help me with living and rent expenses. We were not prepared for a sudden return after we had lost everything during the war,” she said.
Inas, for her part, said that her return was compulsory in order to complete the remainder of her studies. Her daily difficulties in Omdurman have increased as she travels to the college campus in Bahri because of the damage to the Shambat Bridge and changes to transportation routes, imposing physical hardship and financial costs of up to 20,000 Sudanese pounds per day.
Does it make sense for us to risk travelling and returning for just a week or two simply to sit for examinations?
Hamza Mohamed Khalafallah, engineering student at the University of Sudan
Hamza Mohamed Khalafallah, a student in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sudan, told Atar: “We engineering students have been suffering continuously since 2020, and studies did not resume until 2025 through online education. We expected to sit for our examinations at the external centres, and then we were surprised by the decision to close them. Does it make sense for us to risk travelling and returning for just a week or two simply to sit for examinations? If the return had been to resume classroom-based study, we would have understood the decision.”
He continued: “There are students who have settled in Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and found jobs. This decision severely harms them after they became self-reliant and found a way out of the prolonged disruption caused by the war and problems with their education.”
Private Universities
In a related development, Ahfad University of Women announced that it would begin administrative operations from its campus in Omdurman’s Al-Arda neighbourhood starting August 1, 2026. It adopted a gradual return of female students according to their faculties, while final-year students in the faculties of medicine and pharmacy would continue their work in the states. The university also announced that arrangements would be made for female students who had discontinued their studies since the beginning of the war.
Fadwa, a student at Ahfad University living in Egypt, explained to Atar that the rapid return decision threatens to cost her the job she relies on to support her family.
Mohamed Oshiek, a student at Al-Neelain University living in Saudi Arabia, expressed a similar view, noting that the Medina centre had provided him with a balanced option that allowed him to combine study and work.
Most of the students concluded their comments by expressing fear of sharing their opinions with the press or through their universities’ academic platforms, out of concern about being held accountable. They explained that in-person education remains unstable except at a few universities, and that returning to Khartoum is currently only for sitting examinations, nothing more.
