By Okech Francis
JUBA
Despite high hopes for achieving peace after a recent power-sharing deal between the South Sudanese government and rebels, schooling in the country remains on hold for now as different militant groups and internally displaced persons (IDPs) continue to occupy educational institutions.
"Schools have been occupied by armed forces. In the case of the government army, we have presented a report to the people concerned… and the SPLA has been informed to evacuate any learning institution – and they are doing so," Education Ministry Undersecretary Michael Lopuke Lotyam told The Anadolu Agency in an interview in Juba.
"As government, we have taken this seriously, and all schools which are occupied will be made use of soon [by school administrators and teachers]," he said.
The education system in South Sudan, which became independent in 2011, is struggling with damaged or plundered learning institutions, dwindling school enrolment, insufficient teachers and funding shortfalls, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said in a factsheet issued in late January.
It noted that 95 schools in South Sudan's three states of Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity were currently occupied by either militants or IDPs.
South Sudan has been shaken by violence since late 2013, when President Salva Kiir accused Riek Machar, his sacked vice-president, of leading a failed coup attempt against his regime.
Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese have since been displaced in fighting between the two rivals, close to two million people have been uprooted from their homes, and hundreds of thousands now seek shelter in refugee camps across the country.
Kiir and Machar signed a power-sharing agreement in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Sunday night in hopes of ending the crisis.
Defense Minister Kuol Manyang Juuk Juuk, for his part, insisted that his troops were not occupying schools.
"We do not have any government army occupying schools," he told AA. "These are reports that are collected from people who are against development."
Claims that the army was still occupying schools, Juuk asserted, were based on earlier, unreliable reports.
"There are no schools occupied by the army; we said this a long time ago. And when they are told to go and verify [the claims], they decline to go with SPLA members to such places," he added.
Drop-outs
Lotyam said that many of the 400,000 children who had dropped out of school in the three most affected states as a result of the crisis had since enrolled in schools in other states, raising the specter of overcrowding.
"The children moved to other states and added enrolment into those other states. All we want is to focus now equally to address issues emerging from the hosting states," he told AA.
"Congestion [i.e., overcrowding in schools] is becoming an issue. Learning materials and teachers are few and there is a lack of school feeding programs," the official lamented.
Last December, the Education Ministry issued a report stating that 400,000 children had dropped out of school in Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity states as a direct result of the political crisis.
In April of last year, Peter Ayuen, 16, fled the fighting in Jonglei's Twic East County and found his way – along with a group of other displaced people – to capital Juba, where he currently lives with relatives.
"I was in primary five when I stopped going to school," he told AA.
Ayuen has since joined a group of young people who eke out livings washing cars outside a government office complex.
"I am living with my relatives and they are not sending me to school," he said.
Ayuen's dream is for peace to return to the fledging country so that he might return home to continue his studies.
"I still want to go to school and become a doctor – if I can go back home and continue with my education," he said.
Optimistic
Lotyam, for his part, said the government and its partners should begin looking at – and addressing – the challenges facing the troubled country's education system.
"That is the language we are speaking now. Education cannot wait for the war to wind down," the senior official told AA.
In hopes of assisting students, he said, the government had managed to come up with additional funding aimed directly at learners, in terms of capitation grants and the facilitation of female learners.
A capitation grant, according to the ministry undersecretary, is funding disbursed to schools that is calculated based on the number of students.
This includes, among other things, the purchase of academic materials and the building or repairing of toilet systems.
For primary schools, it is 39 South Sudanese pounds (about $12) per learner; in secondary schools, it is about 80 South Sudanese pounds (roughly $25) per student.
"We have the capitation grant and also funding given to girls in primary five and above. We are very confident that education is on the right track in the country," said Lotyam.
"For the first time, the government has brought this noble initiative to give direct support," he said of the planned funding for girls.
"It is 125 South Sudanese pounds (about $39.5) which is given annually to each girl in school," the official explained.
"As we all know, growing girls need money to help them handle their body changes. When we do this, we will help keep them in school," he added.
BRAC, a Bangladesh-based international development agency that works in South Sudan's education sector, recently unveiled 350 new learning centers – including mobile ones – with a particular emphasis on girls' education.
The centers will operate in the Central Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria, Western Equatoria and Lakes states, where they will target poor rural communities, including pastoralists who are constantly on the move.
In an education situation report issued at a Jan. 29 inauguration ceremony for the new learning centers, BRAC said that some 1.4 million children were out of school nationwide, adding that South Sudan had the world's worst literacy rate, with adult literacy standing at a mere 27 percent.
