Sudan’s Khartoum state postpones school exams until after Ramadan

The Ministry of Education of Khartoum has announced the postponement of the final school exams for the primary and intermediate stages until after Eid El Fitir, which marks the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan.

The Ministry of Education of Khartoum state has announced the postponement of the final school exams for the primary and intermediate stages until after Eid El Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In a letter to the directors of educational affairs in the localities, the Director of the General Administration of Basic Education, Dr Mohamed Ahmed, has instructed that the second period exams for public and private schools for basic education (primary and intermediate) should only occur after Eid El Fitir (following Ramadan), as directed by the director.

Teachers’ strike

At the end of February, the Sudanese Teachers Committee (STC) decided to temporarily suspend their strike actions which had been ongoing for almost two months.

STC member Duriya Babiker told Radio Dabanga at the time that the committee will suspend the strike, which started in December 2022. She described the move as “a sign of goodwill to the Sovereignty Council.”

She said that they will continue to boycott secondary school exams in Khartoum and will not prepare students for them. They plan to submit a memorandum to the federal Ministry of Education demanding that the current school year be extended.

The STC condemned the ‘predatory actions’ utilised by Sudan’s authorities in disrupting the recent strikes, by forcing students to sit their exams during the strike-schedule.

In an interview with Radio Dabanga, Babiker stated yesterday that holding the exams in light of the strikes is a “crime against students”, and that the only purpose of this “interruption is to undermine the multi-state-wide strikes”.

Babiker also stated that a STC meeting is expected to be held later this week to discuss the appropriate response regarding the impromptu exams. According to the STC leader, they must first wait for the “reports submitted by STC members in the various states”, till they decide on how the committee will proceed.

She also denied the assertion that teachers had been paid their full dues by the Ministry of Finance, as per the agreement reached between the STC and representatives of the Sovereignty Council and the Finance Ministry on January 25.

It was agreed in January that a wage increase, vis-à-vis a 14.8 per cent increase in the government’s spending on the education budget in 2023, would be authorised in order to supplement the teachers’ salaries.