South Sudan’s children yearn to go back to school

James Mamuc, a 15-year-old boy, lives in the swampy mud lands of Unity State’s Koch County and has been at home for about two years since the conflict broke out in late 2013. He and his family spend many hours every day hiding in the bush to avoid the fighting, sometimes surviving by eating wild leaves and flowers.

“I want peace so that I can go back to school,” he says. “The war killed many people in this Koch County. All the people are suffering.” James says finding food is the major problem for his family, which barely survives on their diet of wild plants and fish.

James is among thousands of children now staying at home and wants the peace agreement signed by President Salva Kiir and the rebel leader Riek Machar in August to be implemented so he and his classmates can return to their books.

UNICEF Country Representative in South Sudan Jonathan Veitch says at least 200,000 children across the country have been cut off from school by the conflict, a number which has been reduced from 400,000 children earlier this year by a school campaign launched by UNICEF and the South Sudan Ministry of Education.

At the launch of the campaign, UNICEF estimated that 70 percent of 1,200 schools in the major conflict states in the north of the country had been closed, sparking fears that a generation of children could be left behind.

“In this area of southern Unity State there hasn’t been any education for nearly two years and that is very serious,” Veitch says, adding “the schools are either occupied by armed forces or by IDPs or even completely destroyed”.

While education in these conflictive regions is near impossible, other challenges are faced by the rural schools across the country. Gondeliza Awutu, a primary seven pupil in Juba One Girls Primary School, says she aspires to become president one day, but faces a series of obstacles: “Sometimes there is lack of transport, lack of money to pay school fees.”

Nicholas Lolik, Head Teacher of Juba One Girls Primary School, says his school is not as hard hit as other schools in conflictive areas, but he requires urgent support. “For example now I have a basket ball ground and I have a netball ground but we don’t have some of the materials, like the balls and other things like the uniforms,” Lolik says.

Lolik added that the Ministry of Education is late in transferring funds, affecting the smooth running of some activities. He added that there is a lack of sanitation facilities, especially for girls.

UNICEF’s Veitch urged the government and opposition to end the vicious circle of fighting. “A huge effort is needed to try to stabilise the situation because these children have to be given an opportunity to learn, otherwise their future will be the same as their fathers and their grandfathers. They will enter into a spiral of conflict that will seemingly not end.”

South Sudan’s literacy rate is one of the worst in the world, estimated at 27 percent of the total population of around 12 million people.