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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
Traditionally, girls' education was of the most rudimentary
kind, frequently provided by a khalwa, or religious
school, in which Quranic studies were taught. Such basic schools
did not prepare girls for the secular learning mainstream, from
which they were virtually excluded. Largely through the
pioneering work of Shaykh Babikr Badri, the government had
provided five elementary schools for girls by 1920. Expansion was
slow, however, given the bias for boys and the conservatism of
Sudanese society, with education remaining restricted to the
elementary level until 1940. It was only in 1940 that the first
intermediate school for girls, the Omdurman Girls' Intermediate
School, opened. By 1955, ten intermediate schools for girls were
in existence. In 1956, the Omdurman Secondary School for Girls,
with about 265 students, was the only girls' secondary school
operated by the government. By 1960, 245 elementary schools for
girls had been established, but only 25 junior secondary or
general schools and 2 upper-secondary schools. There were no
vocational schools for girls, only a Nurses' Training College
with but eleven students, nursing not being regarded by many
Sudanese as a respectable vocation for women. During the 1960s
and 1970s, girls' education made considerable gains under the
education reforms that provided 1,086 primary schools, 268
intermediate schools, and 52 vocational schools for girls by
1970, when girls' education claimed approximately one-third of
the total school resources available. Although by the early 1990s
the numbers had increased in the north but not in the war-torn
south, the ratio had remained approximately the same.
This slow development of girls' education was the product of
the country's tradition. Parents of Sudanese girls tended to look
upon girls' schools with suspicion if not fear that they would
corrupt the morals of their daughters. Moreover, preference was
given to sons, who by education could advance themselves in
society to the pride and profit of the family. This girls could
not do; their value was enhanced not at school but at home, in
preparation for marriage and the dowry that accompanied the
ceremony. The girl was a valuable asset in the home until
marriage, either in the kitchen or in the fields. Finally, the
lack of schools has discouraged even those who desired elementary
education for their daughters.
This rather dismal situation should not obscure the
successful efforts of schools such as the Ahfad University
College in Omdurman, founded by Babikr Badri as an elementary
school for girls in the 1920s. By 1990 it had evolved as the
premier women's university college in Sudan with an enrollment of
1,800. It had a mixture of academic and practical programs, such
as those that educated women to teach in rural areas.
Data as of June 1991
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