Ahfad University for Women is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

women's university A women's college is an institution of higher education where enrollment is all-female. In the United States, almost all women's colleges are private undergraduate institutions, with many offering coeducational graduate programs. In other countrie ...

Omdurman Omdurman (standard ar, أم درمان ''Umm Durmān'') is a city in Sudan. It is the most populated city in the country, and thus also in the State of Khartoum. Omdurman lies on the west bank of the River Nile, opposite and northwest of the ...

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

that was founded in 1966, by Yusuf Badri, son of the Mahdist soldier

Babiker Badri Babikr Bedri was a Mahdist warrior who later became a social activist and laid the foundations for women's education in the Sudan. (His name is variously transcribed in Latin letters as "Babiker Badri" or similar ways.) Bedri began with a small ...

. The university began with only 23 students and 3 teachers. It was the first Sudanese women's college. The current president is Dr. Gasim Badri, Yusuf Badri's son.

History

The Ahfad University for Women was founded in a familial tradition of educating girls in Sudan. After the battle of 1898 when Sudanese Mahdist forces were defeated by the Anglo-Egyptian army, Babiker Badri — a Sudanese survivor — settled in the village of Rufu'a. It was there that he opened a

secular school Secular education is a system of public education in countries with a secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religio ...

for boys. In 1904, he asked the British authorities for permission to open an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

for girls — who he believed also needed to be educated. His request was denied twice, before it was finally granted by James Currie, the Director of the Educational Department of the British administration in Sudan. In 1907, Babiker Badri opened his secular school for girls in a mud hut with nine of his own daughters along with eight neighborhood girls. The Badri family carried on this tradition of private education for three generations in Sudan. Babiker's son Yusuf established Ahfad University in 1966, and it started with only 23 students and three faculty members, including Yusuf. The university was granted full university status in 1995 by the Sudan National Council for Higher Education, due to its expansion of curriculum and student body. It is the oldest and largest private university in Sudan to date. In a 2018 interview, British-Sudanese journalist

Zeinab Badawi Zeinab Badawi ( ar, زينب بدوي; born October 1959) is a Sudanese-British television and radio journalist. She was the first presenter of the ''ITV Morning News'' (later known as '' ITV News at 5:30''), and co-presented ''Channel 4 News'' ...

talked about her great-grandfather Babiker Badri:

Schools

The university has the following

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...

schools: * School of Management Studies (formerly School of Organizational Management) * School of Health Sciences * School of Psychology and Pre-School Education * School of Rural Extension Education and Development * School of Medicine * School of Pharmacy. It offers graduate programs in: * Human Nutrition * Gender and Development * Gender and Peace Studies * Sustainable Rural Development * Business Administration * Microfinance * Counseling and Heath Psychology * High Diploma in Teaching of English as a Foreign Language * High Diploma in Teaching of Family Sciences AUW's medium of instruction is English.

History

Schools

See also

References

Further reading