It is coming towards what should have been the last term of the school year in South Sudan. However, there has been no move as yet towards opening schools in spite of much pressure from citizens across the country as well as the international community. It seems likely that we will not now reopen until January, which is the beginning of the new school year.
At a recent meeting of the Technical
Working Group on Covid-19, which comprises all Health NGOs working in Nimule,
including big players such as the World Health Organisation and the Red Cross
as well as local NGOs and health officials, it was decided to form an Education
Sub-Committee to look into ways to support schools in the Nimule area so that
they are ready to reopen with precautions against Covid-19 and also to advise
them on how to keep staff and children safer.
I will be taking part in this sub-committee.
The
Need for Desks
In terms of Cece Primary School, a
major hurdle in getting our school ready for the post-closure reopening, is
going to be seating arrangements. As
many of you will know from my descriptions of the school, most of our children
sit on large mats on the floor. We only
have twenty four desks, which are long and usually seat three or four children
each. None of this will work under
social distancing conditions. Our
children when sitting on mats, always crowd together and are difficult to
control. Getting them to stop doing this
will be next to impossible, especially for the younger ones. The twenty four desks should only have one
child per desk.
Please can I appeal for funds for
desks to enable us to seat our children properly? I would like to be able to order 250 single
seater desks in time for January 2021.
We need to act quickly because it is not possible to order readymade
desks here. An order will have to be
placed with a local joiner and metal worker, the joiner for wooden seats and
desk surface, and the metal worker for the desk framework and legs. The manufacturing process can be
time-consuming as there is no factory production and everything is made
individually. The cost is estimated at roughly
£32 per desk
including transport to the school, so this is a major undertaking. We would really appreciate as much help as
possible. In the event that more funds
are given than needed for the desks, the extra money will be used for other
Covid-related expenses such as facemasks, disinfectant and soap.
Literacy
Campaign
HUMAES and some school staff have
been having training from the Civil Society Facility on advocacy. As a
result of this, we have decided to start a lobbying campaign for a national
literacy strategy. This is sorely needed
because the South Sudan Curriculum does not include literacy, even though it is
mentioned in the General Education Act 2012.
Nor is there any training in literacy at teacher training colleges
within South Sudan because they all follow the curriculum. This is a very serious omission because the illiteracy
rate in South Sudan is 84%. In other
words, 21 out of 25 people cannot read.
Almost all professional expertise comes from outside the country as a
result, whether foreigners or returning refugees educated elsewhere.
Ever since I came to South Sudan I
have been struggling against this lack of literacy, but it is really not a
one-woman task even in one school. Up
until now, I have been the only literacy teacher at Cece Primary School, but
this is becoming less and less practical as the school grows. I am shortly going to hold some literacy
training sessions for all our teachers so that they can put literacy into all
their lessons. My own training is not
great from a professional perspective, but I do have the experience of my
children’s early years at primary school, in which parents were very much
involved. In 2014 I attended a short
training course in JollyPhonics, which is a great method for a country almost entirely without
books. I have been teaching literacy ever
since. 
Teaching a Primary 2 class. We were
having a competition. No windows. No books.
Unlike any other school in Nimule, at
Cece Primary School we have some early reading scheme books, which are
collected for the school by one of our school’s supporters, Hazel Crossley,
whenever I return to the UK. However,
they are from different reading schemes and very incomplete. I also bring back story books to stimulate a
motivation to read in the children.
Those of our children who have been in our school since we opened in
2015 without interruption are now fluent and very eager readers of anything in
print. Once a week we have ‘story time’
which is intended to stimulate interest in books, although it also is very
helpful in giving the children the confidence to stand up and speak.
I am going to describe what happens
in a typical South Sudanese exam room where the children cannot read. I have witnessed this for myself and can
assure you that I am not exaggerating. The
teacher reads the questions to the children.
In some cases, the teacher even writes the answers for them. If writing by themselves the children
randomly copy words from the exam paper in a frantic attempt to pass their exam. They know that if they do not pass, they will
not progress through the school. Their
parents become disheartened with the ever increasing cost of school fees as the
children repeat the preceding year several times. Eventually the parents stop paying, so that
their children are forced to drop out of school. If they are girls they will be married
off. If they are boys they might become
child soldiers, criminals or do the most degrading work, such as fetching
rubbish from restaurants. Some become
town drunkards and drug-addicts. These
are all common scenarios in South Sudan.
Please continue to support us so that our school and our partner HUMAES
can be an instrument in bringing this nightmare situation to an end.
Other
news
I am so grateful for the continued
generosity of all our donors during this time.
As a result we have been enabled to continue paying our school staff,
which helps to keep them on board and with a positive attitude towards our
school.
We have also been able to make doors
and windows for the remaining school classrooms. This was made possible through a large
donation from R K Pryor Trust. This is particularly
important because there are a lot of roaming youths who are making use of empty
and unsecured schools for their own dubious purposes. The doors and windows will very soon be
fitted and the rooms will be locked.
Securing the classrooms will also help to keep our new desks safe from
thieves.
Two of our teachers have been
planting fruit trees and shade trees at the school as well as flowers and
bushes. Hopefully these will survive the
dry season if they are regularly watered.
The dry season usually starts around late November or early December.
If you are able to make a one-off
donation towards buying desks, we would be so grateful. There is also a need for fencing for the
newly planted trees to stop them being eaten by passing cattle. Please can you continue to support us with
regular donations towards salaries.
As already mentioned, we are deeply
grateful for your continued help.
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