By Matia Samuel Timatio
The National Council for Higher Education and Admission to Higher Education Committee released the first phase admission results of 2022 for the students who sat for South Sudan Certificate of Secondary Education last year.
The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Gabriel Changson Chang announced the results of the public Universities intake during a press conference in Juba yesterday (Thursday).
The minister however said the result is discouraging though there is an improvement compared to the previous intakes.
He stated that the admission process could have taken place last year according to the Ministry’s regulations but it didn’t happen because of the financial constraints adding that the reception of students of this year is very poor.
“The Ministry of Higher Education made a lot of efforts to conduct General Admission on time however, that was challenging due to lack of financial resources, on April 11, 2022, the Ministry launched application phase in all the States. Despite wider coverage only 42.2% (13,699) of the candidates applied 19,978 seats offered by all universities,” Chang stated.
“Only 50.9% of the applicants nominated for admission, from 13, 667 who applied, 6, 707 applicants are not nominated because they did not meet the admission requirements. Those who did not get the chance for nomination are advised to apply in the second admission coming soon” Changson revealed.
Meanwhile the representative of Vice Chancellors Forum Prof. John Akec said there is need for more cooperation between the universities and the Ministry of Higher Education on how to tackle the problems to avoid delay of admissions to the public universities.
“It is possible from the services the Ministry of Higher Education is doing that they can actually have sustainable resources from that in terms of the fees they collect” he said. “Something is not right in what we are doing, I can give you an example, mismanagement and disorganization across all our institutions and we should be able to recover the cause of operations from the same people” Akec added.
“What is happening to the resources? If you are undercharging them, if it is difficult let us sit down, academics are supposed to lead and get the best practices and organize things there, the finances is there where we can develop the business models that can allow the Ministry of higher education to be a leader.