Barriers to higher education for women i Southern Sudan

Abstract

This report is written as part of the NUCOOP project; Capacity Building in Southern Sudan – Educating Librarians for the Future (EdLib). The aim of the report is to produce research based knowledge about barriers to higher education for women in Southern Sudan, which will be used to design tailor-made training programmes in librarianship. The study has been carried out by Reidun Faye, Centre for Educational Research, Bergen, Norway. The successful finalisation of this report was made possible with the assistance and support from several people. In particular, the coordinators of the EdLib project; John Akec, Elisam Magara and Ane Landøy have been helpful in providing background information on the educational situation in Southern Sudan and in helping me organise meetings and interviews in the field. During my visit to Juba I also had help from Alfred Lado in organising meetings with staff and students at Juba University in Juba. In Khartoum, Dr. Ayman Rahma was of great help in organising meetings and introducing me to a spectre of libraries. Robert Kayiki at EASLIS was of great support in organising meetings and interviews at Makerere University. I also want to thank Maria Musoke and her library staff at Makerere University Library. Finally I want to thank the number of teachers, academic staff, students, librarians and library staff at Juba University, Upper Nile University, Bahr al Gazal University, Makerere University, University of Bergen, Khartoum University and Ahfad University who gave their time to participate in interviews for this study. The perspectives and inputs from these conversations have contributed to a rich understanding of barriers to higher education for women in Southern Sudan.