The Nihal European University in Sudan

The Nihal European University in Sudan sees as one of its duties, especially in the interest of actively promoting the general level of education, to train qualified teachers, especially for schools and language schools in Sudan but also for working in the integrated educational system to be established on European standards and which the University is to be part of.

Since the 1970s the Sudanese educational system, known for its high standards in the wake of the independence of the country (on January 1, 1956), is suffering from a precarious lack of specialized and pedagogically qualified teachers as the result of internal conflicts as well as severe underfinancing. As a result the majority of graduates did not achieve a level of education desired by university degree programmes. Some international institutions assume a rate of literacy of only 61%. The Sudanese government has itself made efforts with the means at its disposal to raise the general level of education. As a result it has promoted the founding of new schools. At the same time the schools that will be part of the integrated educational system will also be in need of a number of the teachers being trained.

In addition to the general schools a country such as Sudan also needs language schools which enable the Sudanese to acquire internationally common languages in order to be prepared for the modern globalized marketplace and to be able to compete in it – or at least be able to communicate with foreign investors, business partners, supervisors, work colleagues or tourists. Above all learning English as the lingua franca of international business is a requirement in more and more professional fields.

In addition there is the opportunity to train more Arabic teachers of Arabic to provide instruction in language and culture to Sudanese living abroad, outside of Sudan and the Arab world.

For the purpose of recognizing the degrees from schools in the integrated educational system based on European standards it is not permanently acceptable to have teachers sent from Europe in order to implement testing and other administrative procedures.

The training of teachers should at least at the beginning be focused in the area of linguistics owing to the critical significance of this field. As a consequence the subjects for teacher certification will be:

• English
• German
• Spanish
• French
• Arabic

In a second phase the fields of informatics and economics will be introduced in stages.

In the area of Arabic teachers should also be trained to teach school-age children living outside Sudan and the Arab world in their native language and the fundamentals of Sudanese area studies.

A further goal is to train teachers who can teach not only Arabic but also one of the common European languages. They could for instance teach Arabic to foreigners residing in Sudan. Yet they could also teach at the institutions of the integrated educational system based on European standards or at other foreign institutions. In this manner it would be possible in these institutions to use the respective foreign language to communicate outside of actual classwork.

With respect to the demands of content in the teacher certification programme we will attempt to achieve the greatest level of equivalency with the bachelor’s degree programmes in the respective departments, so that students will have the possibility of completing a double major to have some flexibility in their choice of a career. The primary difference from bachelor’s degree programmes would be that these students – while also having a reduced courseload in key qualifications – would have to take additional courses in pedagogical and didactic skills (ca. 8 hours per week in pedagogy and 2 to 4 hours per week in the discipline-based education). At the same time this would reduce significantly their opportunities to combine disciplines. A side effect of the significant similarity in degree programmes is that the particular teaching load for training teachers would be relatively small.

In accordance with the nature of teacher degree programmes practicums should whenever possible take place in schools and other teaching institutions. In this area the university should make efforts to work in partnership with suitable institutions locally. Once they have been set up, institutions in the integrated educational system based on European standards should also offer relevant practicums.

In keeping with the plan of the Nihal European University in Sudan and its educational ideals teaching degree students will not only be trained in their field of disciplinary competence. Instead they should also be required to have the ability to contribute in teaching the general acceptance of Sudanese cultural pluralism and tolerance (on the one hand) and in teaching content that is necessary for living in a modern society (on the other).

In this way the graduating teachers will also have the ability to direct their own pupils toward independent thinking, independent ordering of their learning and independent acquisition of further learning, thus avoiding a simple rote-memorization of knowledge.

Particularly in view of the generally poor financial situation in Sudanese schools and the financial unattractiveness of the teaching profession in schools methods will have to be found that render it more attractive to study education as well as to teach at a school in Sudan.

In addition to sufficient compensation for school teachers in the framework of an integrated educational system based on European standards the Nihal European University in Sudan will have to consider the option of providing special scholarships for students seeking certification subject to the financial means at our disposal. These scholarships would be offered in the form of loans that would be deferred if the student took up practice of the teaching profession within 24 months (at the latest) after graduating. The loans would be fully excused if the student were to work regularly for a minimum of five years as a teacher in a school in Sudan or for the Sudanese government teaching abroad.

Since the teaching degree programmes are linked closely with the bachelor’s degree programmes in the various disciplines a primary duty of the Institute for Teacher Training will be to provide elements of study specific to teacher certification and to provide practicums for education degree students. This means in particular that this Institute will transmit the pedagogical principles of the teaching profession to students. Pedagogy specialists will thus have to be hired as lecturers, whereby two to three faculty ought to suffice at the beginning. By contrast the various departments and sections will have to provide the Institute with the corresponding workload equivalent for the discipline-specific teaching courses.

Because of its cross-faculty character this institute should be under the auspices of the central administration outside of the faculties and working together with the Central Testing Office. At the same time the institute should be in continuous contact with the various faculties and departments with which the various teaching degree programmes are linked.