S Sudan schools remain closed

JUBA: Some of South Sudan’s 6 000 schools opened for a new academic year this month – but the government does not know how many.

Teachers have not been paid. Many, and their pupils, are on the run after four years of fighting. In the capital, classrooms are filled with hungry displaced families.

The UN’s Children’s Fund estimated in December that three-quarters of children are out of school, threatening to create a second “lost generation” of uneducated adults in a country in danger of becoming a failed state.

Some are the children of the original “lost boys” – the nickname for the generation that survived its 22-year liberation war from Sudan only to be caught up in a new conflict two years after it won independence in 2011.

Last year, only half of schools opened, said Education Minister Deng Deng Hoc, who is still trying to gauge how many are open now, three weeks into the new term.

Tens of thousands of people have died and 4.5 million have fled since clashes between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and former vice-president Riek Machar broke out in the oil-rich new country in 2013.

Three-quarters of the adult population is illiterate, one of the highest rates in the world, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

The latest attempt to end the conflict, a ceasefire signed in December, was violated within hours. Many schools are deserted in abandoned towns and villages in the country.

Nearly 19 000 children have been recruited by armed groups, the UN said, although several hundred were released this month. But militias easily lure children by offering them food and protection.

On Monday, the UN said more than 7 million people – nearly twothirds of the population – would have problems finding food this year. Parts of the country are experiencing shortages close to last year’s famine. If they are lucky, mothers might be able to choose between feeding their children and sending them to school.

Fighting forced oil companies to shut down most of the country’s production, slashing government revenues. Education ministry director-general, Daniel Swaka Ngwanki, said salaries for the last three months of the academic term, which ended in December, have not been paid.

The government allocated 3% of its 2017/18 budget to education. More than 50% went to security and administration, including Kiir’s office. Ateny Wek Ateny, Kiir’s spokesperson, said: “When other departments are supposed to spend and they couldn’t find any (money)… they will come to the office of the president to ask for intervention.”