The impact of the Addis Ababa agreement on education in the Southern Sudan 1972-1978

Abstract

This study concerns itself with one aspect of social development in Africa, namely, education in the southern Sudan. It attempts to explore the origin, causes and extent of Euro- Arab oriented educational development, it'critically examines the conditions and circumstances giving rise to educational dualism. It then attempts to measure the effects of past educational and administrative policies and practices on the advancement of education and the southern Sudanese people. Lastly, it assesses the role of the Addis Ababa peace agreement in educational policy formulations, development and execution. When the colonialists came and controlled the Sudan they devised a dual system of education, one for the the Arabs in the northern Sudan, under the control of the colonial administration and the other for the African in the southern Sudan under the control of the various missionary groups. This dualistic structure developed as a result of European rejection of African social and cultural institutions as being primitive and therefore incompatible with European and Arabic civilization as they'(Europcans) encountered in the lower Nile valley. The Europeans regarded the dual pattern of education as political necessity if the northern Sudanese were to retain their Arabic-Islamic cultures and if the southern Sudanese were to remain in 'responsible hands' to be christianized and retain their Africanness.