Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is the government ministry responsible for the higher education and scientific research sector in Sudan, headquartered in Khartoum, and its official website is www.mohe.gov.sd. It was established in the early 1970s to set the policies, plans and programmes for this sector and to coordinate among its institutions. The ministry's creation was preceded by a long history of higher education itself, which began with landmarks such as the Scientific Institute in 1912 and the Kitchener Medical School in 1924, then expanded later to include government and private universities, colleges, institutes and research centres.
The sector over which the ministry exercises policy and coordination oversight consists of government and private universities and institutes and research centres and institutes, which are institutions established under laws and founding orders specific to them, enjoy scientific, administrative and financial independence, and whose affairs are managed by their councils and administrative bodies. The minister chairs the National Council for Higher Education and Scientific Research, and among the Council's tasks are drawing up the national policy for the sector, determining admission policies and student numbers and approving their results, setting the minimum qualifications for members of teaching staff and researchers, regulating the establishment of private and foreign higher education institutions, and evaluating the performance of higher education and scientific research institutions.
Specialised bodies also work within the framework of the ministry's system, including the National Commission for Evaluation and Accreditation of Higher Education, which was established in 2003 to evaluate institutions and programmes and accredit them, the Scientific Research and Innovation Authority, and the National Research Centre, and the ministry's services also include supporting scientific research and funding it and coordinating academic cooperation. The sector witnessed a major expansion documented by the ministry's presentations on the evaluation of higher education: from 17 institutions in 1990, among them 6 universities and 11 institutes, to 105 institutions in 2009, among them 39 universities and 66 colleges, and the number of students rose in the same period from about 25 thousand students to more than half a million students.
(Sources: The official website of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research — the 'About the Ministry' and 'The National Council' pages, and the free encyclopedia 'Wikipedia': Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (Sudan), and a presentation by the Sudanese Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Authority on the history of the sector and its expansion)
— Editorial Team
