Recreating a University for development relevance: the case of University of Juba

The University of Juba is a premier South Sudan’s university. It was established by a legal act in 1975, and admitted its first batch of students in 1977. By 1989, it had five colleges and several hundred students when it was forced by the civil war that had began in 1983 to relocate to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. While in Khartoum, it grew into 12 colleges and schools, and four specialized centers; 18,000 regular students, and 3,000 distant learners in Sudan and the Middle East; and about 1,600 academic and support staff. Following the declaration of South Sudan’s independence in 2011, the University relocated back to Juba, leaving behind a significant part of its student population and staff; and immovable assets such as lecture halls, labs, and equipment. The number of academic staff plummeted to 137 and student population dropped to 10,000, by July 2011. From 2011 to 2014, the previous University of Juba administration struggled to ensure that teaching was going on; and the academic stability was maintained in the face of great challenges such as low numbers of teaching staff, shortage of lecture halls, lack of office space for staff and accommodation for students, among others. What’s more, this situation was aggravated by the changed political and economic context; and by insecurity and political instability in the country, as well as acute funding shortages. The outcomes were mixed and hardly gratifying to staff, students, and the general public. Namely, there was persistently low staffing levels with attendant negative impact on teaching quality, falling student numbers, unstable academic calendar, funding crisis, crumbling infrastructure, collapse of postgraduate and research capacity, weakened capacity to deliver distance education programs, diminished administrative and support capacity, lost vision, the absence of sense of mission, lost visibility, and, not surprisingly, the deterioration of public perception of University of Juba’s academic standing, nationally and internationally. On 31 March 2014, a new administration comprising the current vice chancellor (author of this paper) and two deputy vice chancellors (one for academic affairs and the other for administration and finance) was installed. This paper attempts to share with wider academic community and the general public the struggles of University’s new administration in the last two years to recreate and transform the University into an institution of higher learning that is capable of effecting socio-economic development and social change in the new nation and the Eastern African region; by aspiring not only to be where others in the region are, but be a University capable of meeting the demands put on universities wherever they may be found in the twenty-first century. Namely, to deliver knowledge services through teaching, research, innovation, entrepreneurship, and service to community. More specifically, the paper describes the effort by the new Administration of the University to tackle the multidimensional challenges the University of Juba is encountering, ranging from long term matters such as the setting of a new vision, mission, and organizational values, and changing the organizational culture; to developing a 15-year University’s development master plan; and down to effecting short-term changes such as increasing the level of staffing, reviving postgraduate programs, review of academic regulations, increasing the visibility of the University, improving the general learning environment, improving financial management and governance, maintenance of lecture halls and labs; and enhancing the efficiency and efficacy of service delivery, among others. And last but not least, the paper presents and reflects on the results of a recent study by the planning and monitoring directorate of the University involving the survey of perceptions of 200 students, staff, and members of the general public in regards to the progress made by the new administration in the last two years to improve things for the better.