Reopening Sudan’s universities: Only the start of recovery

Sudan’s universities have passed the deadline the government set for ending their wartime teaching arrangements. On 3 June, Ministerial Decision No 83/2026 ordered public and private institutions to close alternative teaching centres inside Sudan and abroad, and to resume work at their original licensed campuses by 1 August. Institutions that did not comply would be barred from admitting new students in 2026-27.

The aim is easy to understand. After more than three years of war, returning to campus offers a chance to restore face-to-face learning, rebuild academic communities and bring back institutional stability.

But reopening a university restores its physical presence. Recovering it requires restoring its people, its academic capacity, its research mission and its ability to serve students.

Why the government wants universities back

A university is more than a curriculum delivered remotely. It is where departments work together, medical students train on wards and laboratories make practical and scientific work possible. Distributed teaching kept Sudanese students in education for three years, but it could not reliably reproduce supervised practical training, close academic supervision or sustained research.

The ministry also presents the decision as a matter of regulation. In April, Higher Education and Scientific Research Minister Ahmed Madawi Musa said that overseas teaching centres had never been approved and that the distance-learning arrangements allowed during the war were not meant to last indefinitely.

He added that distance learning in applied disciplines should not exceed 20% of instruction. Restoring oversight and consistent standards is a legitimate aim, particularly where supervised training is essential.

There is progress where conditions allow. Ibn Sina University resumed clinical examinations in September.

Reopening a campus also helps restart the neighbourhood around it, with its jobs, housing, transport and local businesses. But the rationale for returning and the capacity to return are different questions.

One deadline, uneven conditions

The decision assumes a campus that still exists and can be reached. For some universities in Darfur and Kordofan, neither is true.

According to the minister, seven public universities, five from Darfur and two from Kordofan, relocated to safer states during the war. The June decision did not publicly specify how institutions whose original campuses remain in active conflict zones would be treated.

Although practical exceptions might reasonably be expected, the minister subsequently described the return decision as final and without exceptions. Whether separate arrangements have been authorised for these universities remains unclear.

Two cases show the complications. The University of Nyala’s ministry-affiliated administration operates from the White Nile and Khartoum states, while an administration aligned with the Rapid Support Forces is rehabilitating the original campus in South Darfur, with the declared aim of reopening it.

Competing authorities raise hard questions about governance, academic records and the recognition of qualifications. The University of El Geneina has continued teaching in Adré, Chad. In July, the minister visited its temporary premises in Khartoum.

Its director said that 7,469 displaced students were studying through centres in eastern Chad in July, with support from UNHCR [the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] and other partners.

For these institutions, returning is not just a matter of resources or persuading students to move. It depends on whether safe, recognised teaching at the original campus is possible at all. Until it is, alternative arrangements may be the only way to keep higher education available to communities already badly hit by war.

What return costs students and families

For many students and academics planning to return to Khartoum, the barrier is cost, not willingness. Families displaced abroad must pay for far more than a journey. They need housing, repairs to damaged homes, replacements for what was lost and a rebuilt household, often after years of shrinking savings and interrupted income.

For students who have been studying in Egypt, Uganda or the Gulf, going back means uprooting their families a second time.

Academic pay offers little help. Under the finance ministry’s March 2026 allocation, minimum monthly salaries were set at Sudanese pounds or SDG1 million for full professors, SDG900,000 for associate professors and SDG850,000 for assistant professors. At a parallel-market rate of about 8,800 Sudanese pounds to the dollar in early October, that is roughly US$114, US$102 and US$97. Such remuneration leaves limited scope for meeting ordinary household expenses, let alone repairing a damaged home or financing a family’s return.

Safety is a further worry. Some Khartoum neighbourhoods remain sparsely populated with damaged services, and explosive ordnance is a documented hazard. The United Nations Mine Action Service recorded 108 people killed or injured by explosive ordnance across Sudan between January and June 2026, nearly half of them in Khartoum and Al Jazirah, which is about 70km away from the capital.

For women students and staff, safe housing and commuting carry particular weight. The reopening of seven student residential complexes in Khartoum State and the rehabilitation of women’s accommodation such as the Ali Abdul-Fattah complex in Omdurman are real progress, but they do not yet guarantee safe, affordable housing for every returning student.

Displaced students, therefore, face a hard choice: uproot their families again, with uncertain housing and services, or risk interrupting an education they have worked hard to continue.

Rebuilding the academic workforce

Buildings can be repaired. Rebuilding the academic expertise disrupted by three years of war is a far more difficult undertaking. Many experienced academics have moved abroad, some to posts in the Gulf and elsewhere. For those who now have better pay, working laboratories and room to develop professionally, returning may not be realistic. Universities will have to offer conditions in which academics can sustain careers and families; persuasion, alone, will not bring them back.

The evidence on scale is partial but consistent. A 2025 study in medicine, conflict and survival of 425 Sudanese academics found that 65.9% had had salary cuts, 22.9% had lost their jobs and 75.3% reported stress, anxiety or depression. The sample was not nationally representative. At the University of Khartoum, a faculty union survey of 381 staff, reported in September, found that 71% of respondents were still outside Sudan.

The losses go beyond vacancies. Universities risk losing postgraduate supervisors, specialist researchers and the institutional knowledge needed to train the next generation, which takes years of mentoring to rebuild. Those who stayed, or who return now, will need support after prolonged disruption and hardship. The University of Khartoum academic staff union has warned that an inflexible return could cause further departures and has proposed transitional arrangements for one academic year.

Research is a separate recovery

Reopening lecture halls and restoring research capacity are different challenges. Laboratories require specialist equipment, trained personnel and sustained funding that physical repairs alone cannot provide.

The losses are heavy. In February, Sudan University of Science and Technology reported losses of about US$258 million, including some 300 laboratories valued at US$220 million. Its deputy vice-chancellor, Abdul Azim al-Mahal, told Sudan Tribune that the destruction included a rare nuclear chemistry laboratory in the College of Science.

At the University of Khartoum, a staff assessment reported in September found damage to 12 laboratories in the faculty of science, seven of them completely destroyed.

Without functioning laboratories, specialist equipment and reliable research funding, universities struggle to conduct experimental research, provide practical training for postgraduate researchers or contribute scientific solutions to the country’s recovery. A medical school can hold lectures in a repaired hall, but it cannot provide clinical training without functioning teaching hospitals and equipment.

Sudanese research has not stopped. Some academics abroad have continued working through host institutions’ laboratories, funding and networks. That is an asset, but it also exposes the gap between what individual researchers can do abroad and what their home universities can offer.

There are encouraging examples at home. The Mycetoma Research Centre at the University of Khartoum, a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre, has rehabilitated damaged facilities, restored laboratory and clinical services, renewed international partnerships and resumed clinical studies. Its recovery shows what sustained effort and outside collaboration can achieve, and the resources it takes.

Who pays?

In March, the finance ministry announced SDG21 billion for public higher education institutions, including at least SDG11.9 billion for academic salaries and SDG7 billion for non-academic staff, alongside operational and training support. That is significant in a constrained budget, but at least SDG18.9 billion was earmarked for salaries. How much funding is available specifically for rebuilding university infrastructure remains unclear.

Private universities face a different challenge. Without the regular public funding available to government institutions, much of the responsibility for restoring their campuses falls on the institutions, themselves. At Mashreq University, rehabilitation of the original campus has been financed from the university’s own resources. Whether other private institutions can make similar investments will depend on their financial circumstances.

Closing overseas centres carries financial risk, too. Some centres attracted international students who might not otherwise have enrolled in Sudanese universities, bringing in foreign-currency tuition. Losing them could hurt just when universities most need income, although the scale is uncertain. The University of Khartoum academic staff union committee has recommended keeping external centres for a transitional year, but no formal exception has been confirmed.

From emergency arrangements to a managed transition

The choice need not be between full return and indefinite emergency teaching. A managed transition could restore campuses while keeping some of the flexibility that helped students continue studying during the war.

During the conflict, I helped coordinate alternative teaching for thousands of students who had lost access to their campuses. The experience showed that distributed teaching can keep a university going in extreme conditions, but that it needs careful coordination, reliable systems and proper academic oversight.

Regulation sets the limits, so it is worth being precise. The decision requires the closure of alternative physical teaching centres. The decision does not explicitly prohibit online delivery as such, although the ministry has separately indicated that distance education remains subject to academic standards and restrictions, particularly in applied disciplines.

Qualifications are the sharper risk. In October, the ministry warned that qualifications issued by unapproved overseas centres after 1 August 2026 will not be recognised, so students who keep studying through them could finish a degree with no official recognition. Remote teaching and overseas physical centres are not the same thing, legally or operationally, and no exception to the decision has been confirmed.

One option, subject to appropriate regulatory approval, would be a campus-centred hybrid model. Lectures given on campus could be streamed through the university’s learning management system for students who cannot yet return, particularly those abroad. Recordings, compressed audio files and downloadable materials would help students with poor connectivity, supported by scheduled online tutorials and office hours.

Assessment would remain on campus or at approved venues. The same model could keep experienced academics now working abroad involved in remote teaching, postgraduate supervision and mentoring while universities rebuild their workforce at home. In applied disciplines it would have to stay within the ministry’s limits on distance learning.

Practical education is harder. Medicine, engineering and other applied subjects need laboratories, clinical facilities and supervised training that lectures cannot replace. Existing international partnerships could be adapted to offer approved placements in host universities, hospitals and laboratories, which would also give Sudanese researchers access to equipment while their own laboratories are rebuilt. This would demand substantial logistics, academic supervision and quality assurance.

Universities whose campuses remain inaccessible would need different arrangements, potentially including temporarily authorised teaching locations until safe, recognised operations can resume. A managed transition must, therefore, account for differences in institutional readiness rather than assuming that every university can return under the same conditions.

Any flexibility would need ministry approval, clear assessment standards, periodic review and a defined end date. The aim is, not to preserve emergency structures, but to ensure that restoring campuses does not needlessly interrupt education or sever academic relationships built during the war.

Recovery beyond reopening

Sudan’s universities should return to their campuses as conditions allow. Bringing students and staff back together is essential to the country’s recovery, and the government’s wish to move beyond emergency arrangements is understandable.

Reopening a campus is an important milestone, but the real measure of recovery is what happens afterwards: whether students can afford to attend, academics can build sustainable careers, laboratories can function, and universities can fulfil their wider responsibilities. The transition should, therefore, be judged, not by how many gates reopen, but by what universities can deliver once they do. That is why it needs to be managed, not merely enforced.

Sudan’s higher education system has demonstrated remarkable resilience during the war. Its recovery will depend on rebuilding what was lost without abandoning what was learned.

Dr Gihad Ibrahim is an assistant professor and the head of the department of e-learning at Mashreq University in Sudan.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.