The Sudanese Teachers’ Committee has rejected the adoption of the 2013 curriculum, describing it as an extension of an ideological project that seeks to turn schools into instruments of political indoctrination at a time when the country is facing one of the worst educational and humanitarian crises in its history. The committee stresses that meaningful education reform cannot be undertaken by bodies that lack legitimacy and national consensus, nor through the resurrection of a document that is outdated and has already been rejected both publicly and professionally.
The committee reiterates its categorical opposition to any attempt to restore the curricula of the former regime era, arguing that the 2013 document is not a neutral technical framework but part of a closed political project that excludes cultural and linguistic diversity and undermines critical thinking among students. In its view, using this document as a basis for any reform process would merely reproduce the same system that helped deepen the national crisis and fuel the ongoing war, rather than address their root causes.
The committee also criticizes the composition of the Higher Committee for Curriculum Review, which met in Omdurman, noting that a majority of its members are affiliated with the National Congress Party and the Islamic Movement, including figures who previously held senior posts at the National Centre for Curriculum when the 2013 document was drafted. This, the statement argues, strips the body of basic neutrality and credibility. The Teachers’ Committee maintains that any body formed in this way lacks both the social mandate and the professional trust required to manage such a sensitive file with far‑reaching implications for future generations.
According to the committee, the 2013 document falls short of modern educational standards, as it is rooted in rote memorization and repetition, weakens students’ intellectual and research capacities, and burdens teachers with tasks that are misaligned with contemporary pedagogical roles. These curricula, it says, have contributed to distorting the educational process and have failed to prepare citizens capable of creativity and conscious civic participation.
The committee further underscores that the current political and security context—marked by de facto rule and a devastating war—does not provide a professional or national environment conducive to developing sustainable curricula, since the absence of legitimacy and consensus makes any far‑reaching change vulnerable to political instrumentalization. It considers the return to a document drafted more than a decade ago, in a very different political setting, a hasty move aligned with a project that has already been rejected both socially and professionally, and one that does not meet the needs of the present phase.
As an alternative, the Teachers’ Committee calls for a comprehensive national project to build a modern curriculum that respects cultural and linguistic diversity, promotes critical thinking, upholds human rights and citizenship, and links knowledge to students’ lives and to the imperatives of sustainable development. It emphasizes that it will not accept the reproduction of exclusionary curricula or the return of the 2013 document in any form, and calls for safeguarding students’ right to contemporary, pluralistic education grounded in sound scientific foundations and reflecting Sudanese aspirations for a civil and democratic state.
Source: Sudan News + Al Yurae.
