South Sudan education minister hails achievements made in education sector

July 6, 2010 (ALEK) — The semi autonomous Government of Southern Sudan has said it made lots of achievements in the education sector since formation of the regional government five years ago.

Dr. Michael Milly Hussein, a newly appointed minister of education, in an interview with the press on Tuesday in the regional capital, Juba, said his government has done a lot in the education sector and that it is happy with the investments in education.

“I can assure that we are in the brink of solving all difficulties and challenges that have been plaguing our education system for years. Right now I can confidently say we are above the problems,” said Dr. Hussein, who got reappointed to the ministry for the second time after he was relieved about two years ago.

“This year alone we expect to produce over 4,000 graduates from our various teachers training centers in the region and that is just for starters when it comes to solving the teachers’ shortages in the region,” explained the minister.

He said every secondary school will get at least five or more new trained teachers this year, while 2,700 other trainees are still undergoing studies in the colleges.

He also added that over the past four years the government managed to renovate and built more new teachers colleges, making the total number of such institutions more than previously built in the region.

This should not silence the pessimists who had been smearing our efforts to establish ward-based secondary schools, he said, adding that they were just buildings with neither teacher nor teaching facilities.

Efforts to establish at least one secondary school in each ward had produced 131 new secondary schools so far, making a total of an estimated 3,227 schools across the region.

Within the next five years, the government is expected to construct science laboratories to each secondary school in the region, pointing out that such projects have already started.

Also, with assistance from donor communities and some international aid agencies, the region will embark on special project to produce and print more text books to enable each student in the region own copies.

“There will be no more sharing of books in classes and the programme will include special training of Science and English teachers to solve the problems faced by students on such subjects,” assured the minister.

Southern Sudan became a self governed region following the signing of the 2005 North-South peace accord dubbed as Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the former warring that ended one of the longest civil wars in Africa.

Despite challenges facing implementation of the peace agreement to the letter and spirit, the regional government has internally continued to face myriad of criticism allegedly for paying less attention to corruption and provision of basic services such as health and education.

However, officials from the regional government have relentlessly continued to defend their efforts with proverbial statements that Rome was not built in a day and that the people of Southern Sudan need to exercise patience, as they continue to exert more developmental efforts of the war ruined region.

(ST)