Education in South Sudan is modelled after the educational system of the Republic of Sudan. Primary education consists of eight years, followed by four years of secondary education, and then four years of university instruction; the 8 + 4 + 4 system, in place since 1990. The primary language at all levels is English, as compared to the Republic of Sudan, where the language of instruction is Arabic. There is a severe shortage of English teachers and English-speaking teachers in the scientific and technical fields.
Education in South Sudan is modelled after the educational system of the Republic of Sudan. Primary education consists of eight years, followed by four years of secondary education, and then four years of university instruction; the 8 + 4 + 4 system, in place since 1990. The primary language at all levels is English, as compared to the Republic of Sudan, where the language of instruction is Arabic. There is a severe shortage of English teachers and English-speaking teachers in the scientific and technical fields.
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Education in South Sudan is modelled after the educational system of the Republic of Sudan. Primary education consists of eight years, followed by four years of secondary education, and then four years of university instruction; the 8 + 4 + 4 system, in place since 1990. The primary language at all levels is English, as compared to the Republic of Sudan, where the language of instruction is Arabic. There is a severe shortage of English teachers and English-speaking teachers in the scientific and technical fields.
Roots of the recent Civil War
The recent 2013 South Sudanese Civil War that resulted in a division of the state of Sudan dates back to Second Sudanese Civil War, which was a national conflict between the majority Muslim, Arab northern leadership administration and Christian, African South. With the limited social services destroyed, hundreds displaced, and educational facilities closed, the implications for education increased significantly. These consequences extend to relief operations, as finding individuals with an adequate level of schooling and education to be trained as health relief workers became more difficult with time. After 5 years, in 1998, a total of 900 schools emerged in rural areas owned by the Sudan People's Liberation Army in southern Sudan. These schools were facilitated by local communities and guided by relief wings in the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA) and the Relief Association of South Sudan (RASS).
Creation of the Education Coordination Committee
There was very limited support given to schools in most areas of southern Sudan up to 1993. While some individual NGOs as well as UNICEF offered some training materials for classes, most of the external development efforts were decentralized. As a result, the Education Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) in southern Sudan was established to consolidate the diverse efforts not only to better education in the SPLA-held areas in southern Sudan but also to support existing education structures under the SRRA and RASS. The priorities of the ECC were centered on teacher development and are summarized below:
Increasing the level of education received by teachers and further supplementing it with professional training. This contributed to a focus on teacher education rather than solely teacher training.
Improving the quality of education and training. The desire to invest in this improvement stemmed from the realization that teachers who were properly trained in previous iterations were able to re-emerge and contribute even after geographic displacement and were better suited to the volatility of the region that threatened stability and consistency of education and even physical destruction.
Impact of the Education Coordination Committee
The establishment of the above priorities directed the ECC's focus towards standardization of education and quality training for teachers. The ECC developed a modular teacher-education scheme that operated at five levels, each involving a two-to-three-week course in Sudan that covered both academic and vocational topics.
In terms of content creation, the ECC's materials for distance education has been written by southern Sudanese educationists, or those who have a great deal of experience in the region. Textbooks for the trainings have also been created for these teacher-education courses and have been written in English as well as in local languages. After the creation of these books, the ECC held a workshop to introduce 60 senior educators to the course textbooks. These individuals are now coordinators who support other teachers at their schools. Additional training about how to best address psycho-social needs has increased in attention over the years and is an integral part of addressing student needs.
Relationship between Civil War, religion, and education
Prior to the recent South Sudanese Civil War, South Sudan was primarily viewed as an impediment to the spread of Islam to more southern African nations. The National Congress Party (NCP), which represented a very fundamentalist Islamic policy and imposed Islam as dogma on both Muslim and non-Muslim groups, replaced the administrators and teachers from the Ministry of Education. With the NCP in power, the objectives of the national education system shifted to Islamic values. The rejection of rapid Islamization and the shift towards a more Western and modernist educational approach contributed to a cultural dichotomy in the educational systems in North vs. South Sudan. One such example is exemplified in the decision of the Southern Sudanese Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to mandate English as the primary medium of instruction for the first three years of primary school, which has made the integration of Northern Sudanese very complex and introduced linguistic barriers.
The civil war in Sudan was fueled in part by the systemic denial of education in South Sudan. Due to the stark religious differences in Sudan, with Islam being more prevalent in the North, students in South Sudan are disproportionately equipped to take the national examination after reaching the eighth grade.
Education landscape
The educational landscape prior to the South Sudanese Civil War can be observed in these statistics from the Ministry of General Education and Instruction:
Bringing the attention of teachers toward important issues like health, female education, and psycho-social needs of students is significant for development post-conflict.
Although schools have been established, they have been created at the local village level, introducing the variability of volunteerism and lack of higher leadership beyond village elders and Parent Teacher Councils. To address this, the ECC has pursued avenues to garner more community accountability and support. Here are a few key ways the ECC has done this:
Providing seeds and tools for school gardens (600 were given in 1993 and 1994) in order to produce vegetables for teachers and children. Another goal of this initiative was to increase students agricultural awareness.
Provisioning sewing materials and cloth for women's tailoring groups that can make school clothes for teachers and students. This excess cloth is often bartered, and upon receipt to UNICEF, more cloth is attainable to schools.
