Professors and lecturers at South Sudan’s public universities are demanding a pay hike, saying their wage packets cannot keep up with the cost of living.
This came in a meeting between top academics of the country’s five public universities and minister of higher education in Juba on Wednesday.
Dhieu Chol Arok, a lecturer at the University of Juba, said lecturers are demanding a pay rise that would bring their salaries into line with their colleagues in the East African region.
“Our salaries are very low if we compare ourselves with lecturers in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda,” he said.
He revealed that lecturers earn a minimum of 136 dollars a month which is proving very little to survive on with the inflation.
“If we are going to compete with the region, then we need to be competitive in terms of excellence and compensation, so we have to look into this issue,” he said.
Arok noted that they had presented a pay rise proposal to the minister of higher education.
John Akec, Vice Chancellor of the University of Juba, said the meeting aimed at reviewing a pay structure for all academic staff of public universities, citing poor pay despite inflation in the country.
The economy of South Sudan has been battered by the civil war, driving prices higher.
“Today, if you convert the salary of a professor at the official rate, full professor is getting $136 a month. If we compare it to the region, a professor in Uganda gets about $ 5,000 a month, Rwanda is about $4500, Kenya is about $3600 and the same thing in Tanzania,” Akec said.
He pointed out that low wages have forced professors and lecturers to seek work abroad, expressing concerns that the country may be left without experienced academic staff.
“We are losing staff and we are not attracting people. We are trying to recover the value in the new salary structure,” he said.
“We are going to discuss the salary structure because the objective is to make it competitive, so you need a solution that will meet the objective. We hope that the minister will take the views of the universities to the cabinet.”
On his part, higher education minister Yien Oral Lam said the cabinet will discuss the proposal presented by top academics of the country’s public universities.
“If it is approved by the council of ministers, it will be referred to the ministry of finance for further review and implementation,” he said.
The five public universities are the University of Juba, Upper Nile University, the University of Bahr el Ghazal, Rumbek University and Dr. John Garang Memorial University of Science and Technology.