S. Sudan: 1,600 students take school exam in Unity State

By Bonifacio Taban Kuich

March 19, 2012 (BENTIU) – Unity state authorities on Monday toured on Tuesday eight examination centres in the capital, Benitu.

The acting state governor, Samuel Lony Geng, addressing the 1,567 students before they took their examinations, said education is state’s priority.

North and South Sudan’s ministries of education signed a memorandum of understanding before South Sudan seceded in July 20011. They agreed that South Sudan would retain the curriculum from Khartoum until it devises its own.

The UK publisher, Macmillan, “agreed a civil recovery order of £11.2m [US$17.7m“, and was banned from World Bank tenders for three years for their corrupt dealing with South Sudanese officials in July 2011. This further delayed the production of South Sudan’s curriculum.

Peter Gatkuoth Yoach, a student taking his examination in Bentiu said that there is an inadequate number of teachers in the state.

According to South Sudan’s National Bureau of Statistics, only 27 percent of the nation’s adult population is literate. According to the UN this places South Sudan is one place above the world’s most illiterate country; Mali.

The UN rates north Sudan as having a 70 percent literacy rate.

(ST)