The Effect of ICT in Knowledge in Sudanese Universities and the Labour Market

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the impacts of ICT in the connection, transformation, creation and transfer of knowledge in Sudan. Our findings in this chapter are consistent, agree with and add a new case study to contribute to the international literature on ICT, higher education institutions and universities as we explain in Chap. 3. Our results in this chapter verify the fifth and sixth hypotheses in Chap. 1 on the importance and impacts of ICT in facilitating the creation and transfer of knowledge in Sudanese universities. Our results are consistent with the results in theoretical and empirical literature. We show that the use of ICT, namely Internet, facilitates connections, networks and communication inside knowledge institutions, namely Sudanese universities, facilitates connections with other institutions in Sudan, with regional and international institutions, collaboration between Sudanese universities and international universities, northern institutions and integration of Sudanese universities in the system of global knowledge production. Our findings support the hypothesis that the use of ICT introduces ‘positive-negative’ effects by providing opportunities for the production, creation and transfer of knowledge, but simultaneously also creating hazards to production, creation and transfer of knowledge in Sudanese universities: the positive effect is enhancing access, production and dissemination of knowledge, building connections and organisational changes; the negative transformation is building disconnections for those who do not share the knowledge and do not know how to use ICT. Our results show that the most important advantage related to the use of Internet for facilitating connection and transformation and enhancing the production, creation and transfer of knowledge includes increasing digital knowledge for academic and researchers by finding information that was earlier not available or accessible, rapid quantitative (in number) and qualitative (efficiency and speed) increase in transferring available information. In addition to development of a new model for disseminating and distributing electronic information, where the information moved towards the user and not the other way around, increased creation and transfer of knowledge and increased free access to electronic publications for academic purposes. Our findings indicate that the top problem related to the use of Internet is the lack of or inadequate regular budget for university libraries to pay for access to scientific and technical information, licenses and subscriptions. The major policy implication from our findings is that it is essential for policy making in Sudan and Sudanese universities to enhance the use and impacts of ICT, mainly by motivating the effective use of ICT for creation and transfer of knowledge, enhancing quality and accumulation of human capital and skill and offering adequate budget for enhancing ICT in Sudanese universities.