TOPSHOT - High school students from a Protection of Civilian (PoC) site take their final national school exams after travelling to the school by buses escorted by UN peacekeepers in Juba, South Sudan, on January 24, 2019. - As there is not enough space and facilities to hold exams at their school, 376 highschool students, 319 boys and 57 girls, in PoC are being transfered by bus for the examinations to Buluk A Basic School in the centre of Juba. Around 35,000 IDPs (Internally displaced persons) from all around South Sudan remain living in two camps on the outskirts of the countrys capital. (Photo by Alex McBride / AFP) (Photo credit should read ALEX MCBRIDE/AFP via Getty Images)
The country has received one hundred more slots of scholarship opportunities from Arab Republic of Egypt with new terms that will greatly benefit South Sudanese students to study in Egypt.
Speaking to the media yesterday, the Minister of Higher Education Science and Technology, Gabriel Changson Chang said that the one week visit to Egypt ended successfully.
He stated that the purpose of the visit was to discuss number of issues concerning scholarships.
“We agreed on a number of issues, one of them is to increase the size of scholarships from three hundred to four hundred,” Changson said.
Changson said the additional one hundred students will benefit from the new terms which include tuition fees, accommodation and tickets catering for both their going and coming back after completing their studies. The students are also to be given bursaries of 1000 Egyptian pounds per month.
“The additional one hundred students will comprise of fifty undergraduates and fifty postgraduates,” he added.
He further narrated that they also discussed on how to include the other three hundred students who are currently on scholarship into the new terms because most of them are on partial scholarships.
The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the Arab Republic of Egypt will study and do the necessary protocol from now till April by securing some financial support for all the four hundred students to be included in the new terms.
“We want our students to study in a conducive environment whereby they can only concentrate on their studies instead of going for part time jobs then coming for lectures,” he said.
Changson added that there are about four thousand five hundred South Sudanese students studying in various Universities in Egypt. The bigger number is from private admissions studying on their own which have caused a lot of inconveniences and drop outs.
“We agreed with the counterparts that of all the studies expenses, 90% of the expenses will be catered for by the Egyptian government which means the students will only pay for 10% for the course of their studies,” he stated.
We have also discussed with them to help us upgrade our universities into world class universities in terms of infrastructure and they agreed that they are willing to transform one of our universities that is Juba University.
Via Juba Monitor
