Building the future: education in southern Sudan

By Jeannie Annan and Vanessa J. Akello

MILANO, March 17, 2004 (AVSI) — She laughs with a clear inviting ringing sound and one is tempted to think she has no concern in the world. But her concerns are many for she attempts in the best way she can to change the deep-rooted history of war in southern Sudan.

Sister Paskwina is a nun who gave her life to God after hearing the beautiful voices of the nuns outside the Catholic mission near her home. She was only twelve years old then. Today at fifty-five, she is the headmistress of St. Kizito Primary School, a school she started during the difficult period of 2000.

The war had been raging on for more than two decades, and the rains had not fallen enough for crops in 2000. AVSI with funding from Italian Episcopal Conference and Humanitarian Aid Office of the European Commission was able to supply food and non-food items to some villages in southern Sudan.

On one such day when AVSI staff went to distribute food to the village surrounding the Imotong mountains, 55 school age children of the village, ages ranging 6-10, jump on the track and asked to be taken to the catholic mission where Sr. Paskwina leaves. On seeing them, she was moved and could not send them back. She decided to enrol the Mboya boys -a name for the tribe of Imotong Mountain- in the school, thus the humble beginning of St. Kizito Primary School.

War has destroyed many of the schools in southern Sudan. According to a report in 2003 by U.S. Agency for International, families and communities supported by international non-governmental organisations as well as churches have established 1,300 schools since the current war broke out in 1983. Today however, only 20 to 30 percent of children in the south are enrolled in school and only 12 percent continue past grade four. This percentage drops to 8 for girls. It is estimated that the entire regions’ literate is only 15 percent.

Still, due to the intense fighting and the disruption of life in the south, many children have grown up without any education. When asked why, teachers explain that many parents aren’t interested in educating their children, while others say the children are hungry so they can’t concentrate on school.

Trained teachers are few in southern Sudan. Most teachers are volunteers or receive small stipends from non-governmental organisations or churches according to U.S. Agency for International Development reports. And many of the schools use Ugandan books and curriculum since there is no official southern Sudanese curriculum and they refuse to use that from the north. Some of the schools also have their students take the Ugandan exams so that they can receive a certificate to show their educational achievement.

St. Kizito School offers skills to children giving them a better chance in the future. The school is the best operating in the district, an oasis in a place where adults who didn’t finish primary school themselves volunteer to be teachers because there is no one else to take the jobs. Teachers who can barely speak English are English teachers, those who never passed math are teaching young children how to add and subtract, and those that have reached retiring age still continue to teach. It is a desperate situation.

But Sister Paskwina speaks about the situation differently -she is a woman with a vision. “We wanted to start a school where children came from different areas, different ethnic groups. We have had problems with fighting among ourselves and we wanted children to come together and learn how to live together in peace. We started with nothing, and now we have 1500 children.” Hence, the children in St. Kizito are from the tribes of Lotuko, Dinka, Mboya, Lodogota, Lango and Acholi Madi -ethnic groups that previously only fought among themselves. Parents in the surrounding area who want their children to have good education send them to St. Kizito Primary School. There are so many requests that they are forced to turn away children. With 27 teachers, who are paid depending on donations from various groups -because two-thirds of the families can’t afford to pay the $15 yearly school and boarding fee- the classes are already too large.

Yet Sister Paskwina’s vision continues to expand. She is now attempting to help the other schools in the area to develop, so that they too can provide a good education to the children of the region. She is going to send several of her trained teachers to some of the nearby schools to help raise the standard of the schools by teaching and guiding the less-experienced teachers.

To accomplice all these, the 55-year-old nun hopes that AVSI will continue supporting her school with the much needed trainings and scholastic materials. Presently AVSI is providing food, agricultural tools, and building materials to the schools as well.

AVSI presence in southern Sudan dates back to 1994, when it started providing humanitarian assistances to internally displaced persons in Torit County. The cross boarder intervention aimed to prevent further displacement and refugee influx to Uganda that at the time had 6,000 people.

A transit camp had been set in Achol-Pii, Kitgum District, northern Uganda, where AVSI in partnership with Oxfam was responsible for immunisation, public health, water and sanitation. To date Uganda has more than 75, 000 Sudanese refugees according to February updates from United Nations Office for the Coordination Humanitarian Affairs for Uganda.

In February 2004, AVSI carried out a 5-week mission in southern Sudan where they attended to the medical needs of the different communities in Torit County. These interventions proved vital in the difficult periods when conflict and displacements intensifies or periods of food scarcity just before the harvest.

Most recently however, AVSI carried out teacher training in lesson planning, teaching methods, peace building, and classroom management for 35 teachers from 14 schools in Isohe, Torit County. Half the teachers had never received any teacher training before. The training is hoped to helped teachers to improve their basic skills needed for teaching primary school and to give them increased understanding of the role they can play as teachers in their students’ development especially in the conflict area.

The training focused on practical skills and provided time for the teachers to present lessons and create teaching materials using locally found materials. It was grounded in developmental and pedagogical theory but sought to provide concrete methods to apply the theory.

Many of the sessions followed the AVSI Manual for Teacher Training, which drew experiences from various sources and references and is compiled in a Handbook for teachers. The sessions aimed to meet the capacities of teachers in their particular situation, which included enormous challenges faced by their pupils’ education.

At the end of the workshop lesson plan books, teaching aids, basic instructional materials, and two teacher handbooks were provided to each individual teacher to help improve instruction. Also each school was provided with a Mango Tree kit that consists of teaching aids and student activities and two instructional books for mathematics. And a copy of the Ugandan curriculum was provided for the schools that do not have it yet.

Perhaps the best way to look to the future as Sudan awaits total peace to return after 20 years of war is through the commitment of its people in the education of the children. A teacher, Lucio, could not have express this better when asked why he still teaches at 80 years, an age way pass retirement, “I continue to teach because I am a teacher. It is my professional duty to educate.”