This war-torn country’s universities are growing thanks to innovation and a rising demand for higher education. When civil war broke out in South Sudan in December 2013, students at Upper Nile University (UNU) were taking their exams. It took a week for the fighting to reach Malakal, then the country’s second-largest city and home to the university’s main campus. Everyone grabbed what they could and fled, some across the nearby border to Sudan, most to a camp protected by U.N. peacekeepers. In January 2018, the government sent planes to evacuate UNU staff and students to South Sudan’s capital, Juba. Even though books, computers and laboratory equipment were all left behind, the university restarted the interrupted exams by June. Most students took their tests in Juba, but papers were also flown to Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, and Wau, another southern city. Around 80 percent of students managed to finish the tests, says Malony Keer, the dean of UNU. But it was the university that had passed the toughest test, one of many it has since cleared. |