In most wars, degrees are put on hold until the guns fall silent. But Sudan defied that logic. As civil war destroyed campuses, displaced professors, and scattered students across Sudan and neighbouring countries, archaeology classes at the University of Khartoum continued. Lectures were delivered. Assignments were submitted. Examinations were organised through WhatsApp.
This story emerges from Pedagogy Under Fire: Teaching Archaeology with WhatsApp during Sudan’s Civil War, a study published by Cambridge University Press and authored by Ahmed Hussein Abdelrahman Adam of the University of Khartoum.
Since the outbreak of Sudan’s civil war in April 2023, headlines have understandably focused on violence, displacement, hunger, and political collapse. Universities were not spared. Campuses closed. Academic facilities were looted or destroyed. Millions of Sudanese were forced from their homes.
At the University of Khartoum, one of Africa’s oldest and most prestigious universities, archaeology classrooms, laboratories, and teaching collections were damaged by the conflict. For most institutions, such circumstances would have meant the end of teaching. Instead, Sudanese educators kept education alive when everything that normally makes education possible had disappeared.
A virtual university
The messaging application, better known for family chats and neighbourhood groups, became a virtual university. Lecturers recorded lessons as audio files and shared them through WhatsApp groups. Reading materials were converted into small PDF files that students could download whenever connectivity became available.
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Discussions took place through voice notes and text messages. Assignments were submitted privately through the platform. Students who had been scattered across Sudan, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, and elsewhere remained connected to their courses through a tool already sitting in their pockets.
Unlike universities in wealthier countries, many Sudanese institutions entered the war already facing significant digital challenges. Reliable internet access was uneven. Many students relied on smartphones rather than laptops. Electricity shortages were common.
During the conflict, internet blackouts, displacement, and economic collapse made conventional online learning platforms difficult or impossible to sustain. Even the University of Khartoum’s own digital infrastructure became inaccessible after the outbreak of war.
Under such circumstances, the educational question was not how to create the perfect online classroom. It was how to create any classroom at all.
Across Africa, discussions about education often revolve around deficits. We speak of inadequate infrastructure, limited budgets, poor connectivity, and technological gaps. These challenges are real and deserve attention. Yet the Sudanese case demonstrates that innovation is not always about acquiring more sophisticated technology. Sometimes it is about finding creative ways to use what is already available.
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Sudan transformed a simple communication tool into a functioning educational ecosystem capable of sustaining learning under conditions of war. Universities organised examinations through regional centres to reduce dangerous travel.
A common challenge
Armed conflicts in parts of the Sahel and eastern Congo, climate-related disruptions, and political instability in other regions have made educational interruptions an increasingly common challenge. The question facing many institutions is no longer whether disruption will occur, but how they will respond when it does. Sudan has offered one possible answer.
Not because WhatsApp is a perfect educational platform. It is not. The limitations are obvious. Archaeology students cannot conduct full excavations through voice notes. Laboratories cannot be recreated on smartphones. Fieldwork remains indispensable. Even the educators involved acknowledge that practical training will need to be completed when conditions allow.
The decision was between imperfect education and no education at all. Under those circumstances, preserving academic continuity becomes an extraordinary achievement. Preventing thousands of students from losing years of study is not a compromise. It is a victory.
For too long, conversations about innovation have largely flowed in one direction. African institutions are often portrayed as recipients of ideas developed elsewhere. Solutions are expected to arrive from international organisations, foreign universities, or technology companies.
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The Sudanese response emerged from local realities and local knowledge. No global education technology firm designed this model. No expensive consultancy developed it. Educators and students simply looked at the tools available to them and adapted.
They built on existing social networks, familiar technologies, and a deep cultural commitment to education. What emerged was not a product of abundance but of necessity. And necessity, as history repeatedly demonstrates, can be a powerful source of innovation.
Education as resistance
Resilience is presented as the ability to survive hardship. The Sudanese educators and students who kept learning alive through WhatsApp demonstrated something more active. They were not merely enduring war. They were resisting its consequences.
Every lecture shared through a voice note, every assignment submitted through a mobile phone, every examination completed despite displacement was an act of defiance against the idea that conflict must inevitably destroy opportunity.
Educational systems must be designed not only for times of stability but also for times of crisis. Resilience should become part of educational planning rather than an afterthought when disaster strikes.
The story from Sudan is about a society refusing to surrender one of its most valuable assets: knowledge. And in a continent too often defined by its crises, Sudan’s educators have offered a powerful reminder that even in the darkest moments, learning can endure, communities can adapt, and the pursuit of knowledge can become an act of hope.
Mariam Gichan is an archaeologist and journalist based in Dar es Salaam. She’s available at mariamgichan@gmail.com or +255 754 215 690. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
