The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology has drafted students’ support fund bill 2021 to facilitate students’ learning at public universities.
The bill is meant to address students’ welfare, which includes feeding, their transport from the states, and accommodation.
Speaking during the handover of the document by Okay Africa Foundation to the Ministry of Higher Education, Changson Chang, the Minister in charge said the ministry will establish a body that will be responsible for the affairs of students.
Mr. Chang said the bill will be presented to the economic cluster and governance cluster for review before it is taken to the parliament for enactment.
“We have just witnessed the handing over of a document that was enriched by Okay Africa Foundation with support from the Norwegian People’s Aid Students’ Support Fund Bill,” he said.
Chang said the same document was presented to the Council of Ministers in 2019 where it was to be passed as a bill that allows for the establishment of a body called ‘National Student Welfare’ but it was referred back to the economic cluster and the governance cluster to resolve some issues which were not addressed.
“But it could not pass because of some shortcomings among them lack of resources. The revenue that was proposed to fund the program was based on double taxation and [there was] the issue of collection and other better ways to support the students from the government budget,” the minister said.
The minister revealed that two of the public universities were closed for the last 15 months. These included Dr. John Garang Memorial University and Rumbek University due to poor social welfare.
“The ministry has not been able to meet the demands of the students such as is feeding the students. We are supposed to feed students but because of some difficulties and financial constraints it was impossible,” Chang said.
Mr. Chang revealed that the universities owe SSP7.5 billion arrears to the contractors who have been supplying students with food.
This, he said, is because the universities did not receive the approved SSP83 million budgets for their operation last year.
“A budget of 83 million was approved for public universities to operate last year but no single coin was paid to them by the ministry of finance,” said Changson.
Appeal to donors
Meanwhile, Data Emmanuel Gordon, Okay Africa Foundation Program Coordinator, called on the Norwegian People’s Aid to support the ministry on the guidelines for the document to move forward.
“So if you can also help the ministry in making sure that the document is availed. It will be very important for a ministry dealing with young people,” Emmanuel urged.
For his part Michael Gorjin, youth rights project coordinator said for the document to move forward, NPA will support the ministry in the process.
“This is something we need a budget for so that we support this kind of request but not just only the students’ support fund,” he said.
However, the minister said the review of the bill was in line with the 2018 peace agreement which provided for establishing students’ support fund bill.
He said the bill has already been presented to the service cluster and it was accepted and that it is ready to be presented to the economic cluster in the next two days.