by Akim Mugisa
JUBA - South Sudan is struggling to rebuild its tattered education system but improvement is stalled by a lack of qualified teaching staff.
The United Nations marked World Teachers’ Day earlier this month with the slogan: “Take a stand for teachers”. But calls for adequate teacher training remains a pipe dream in much of South Sudan.
Emerging from a long civil war, the young country is struggling to rebuild its education infrastructure and tackle its illiteracy rate, which the UN ranks as the second highest in the world.
The head of the church founded Yei Teachers Training College in Central Equatoria State, James Kepo, says a lack of qualified teachers condemns children to a bleak and uncertain future.
“Poor education degrades humanity and blocks the path to progress,” he explains. “The backbone of South Sudan is not agriculture or oil but its people.”
He urges more investment for education, especially teacher training and satisfactory wages to retain them in the profession.
Primary school teachers in government institutions at present take home a net wage of 288 to 746 South Sudanese Pound (US$ 95-240), depending on qualifications.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a teacher at Kanjoro Primary School described the pay as meagre and irregular. “The money is too little. We have to pay our rent, send our children to school and we survive on credits due delays in being paid,” the teacher says.
Economic pressures weigh heavily on teachers, according to County Education Director in Yei, Charles Lumori, who says that some graduates were resorting to jobs like riding boda boda (motorcycle taxis) to make ends meet, given the low rates of pay in the education sector.
Lumori states that the profession needs to be made attractive through motivation for those already in service to encourage others in joining the field.
Hipai Regina Rumano, a student in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State, says many people are unable to send their children to school. “There are not enough teachers in government schools. Private institutions are charging high fees, leaving children from poor families without education,” Rumano told The Niles.
The Ministry of General Education and Instruction has outlined plans to improve schooling, with the help of international agencies. Among the major obstacles it faces is the lack of qualified teachers. The majority of South Sudanese schools rely on teachers, often volunteers, who have no training.
The Civil Service Reform has recently made the shortage more acute by laying off unqualified and volunteer teachers. In a bid to improve standards, private schools hire from neighbouring countries such as Uganda and Kenya. Bureaucratic barriers like working permits however, have limited the inflow of professional immigrants.
There is no data on the number of teachers in the country but they are in short supply, especially in urban schools, which are struggling to keep pace with an upsurge in enrolment. Ministry of Education and General Instruction Under Secretary Deng Deng Hoc Yai has noted the country’s worrying illiteracy levels of 88 percent among women and 76 percent among men.
He says teacher training is among his ministry’s priorities, adding that the country’s children would become an economic drag if they are not educated.
Some teacher training projects are already underway, but they remain a drop in the ocean.
With support from the Basic Services Fund, which channels funds from donor nations, the Yei Teachers Training College admits one hundred trainees on scholarship from all ten states each year. The programme is in its second year.
An Education Monitoring Officer working with BSF, Nicholas Ramsden, says South Sudan would need about 450,000 trained teachers in the early years of its independence.
But training institutions of Kajokeji, Maridi, Malakal and Mbili lack adequate resources and are said to be unlikely to produce enough teachers for the country.
Among international support for the young nation, the Ethiopian government recently signed an agreement with Eastern Equatoria State to sponsor fifty student teachers. Those selected to attend a three-year course at Awassi training institute will leave for Ethiopia this month.
“We are here to support the government of Eastern Equatoria State in teachers’ training programmes. This is the first support of its kind given to the state and we will ensure to the continuation of such support in the future,” says the country’s deputy head of mission in Juba, Negash Legesse. Hawa Adam, a qualified teacher at Seventh Day Adventist primary school, says that refresher courses are also important for teachers to catch up with the latest developments. “There are periodic changes in the syllabus and there is need to be equipped with new ideas in teaching in order to promote efficiency.”
Among the training schemes, a three-year South Sudan Teacher Education Programme (SSTEP) was launched by the Ministry of General Education and Instruction in partnership with the Education Development Centre. The nation-wide course, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), aims at improving teacher performance through certification, developing a unified curriculum for teachers as well as providing training and learning resources.
Other issues continue to hamper on South Sudan’s education system. State Minister for Education in Central Equatoria Margaret Ayite Milyan has said that she hopes that the recent national education bill would address issues of teachers having sexual relations with students, especially girls.
Ayite says that male teachers involved in relations with students should loose their jobs while girls should be encouraged to rejoin school after having babies, meaning that their all-important education remains intact.