Update on the school

Cece Primary School has been growing steadily since 2015, when we started with only 60 children all at the same beginner level in a loaned building.  We now have classes from Pre-primary up to Primary 7 on our own school site.  Pre-primary is divided into two classes as the numbers are very large and they are mixed ability.

One classroom on foundations
 meant for four classrooms

We therefore have 9 classes altogether.  However, the number of available classrooms is only 7, as we also need a teachers’ room and a storeroom.  As a result, we have had to adjust the school day so that all classes have the use of a classroom.  To do this, Pre-primary, Primary 1 and Primary 2 are held in the mornings only, ending with lunch.  Two classes, Primary 3 and Primary 4, come at lunchtime and take over the Pre-primary rooms; all their lessons are held in the afternoons with a very cramped timetable to enable all subjects to be covered.  There is no afternoon break because otherwise everyone would have to go home late, in a town with a very unpredictable security situation.  Primary 5, 6 and 7 have a full school day with a morning break and a lunch break.  I would dearly love all pupils to be in school in the morning with lessons extending into the afternoons for all the higher classes, without the need for classrooms to be used for two classes.

From April next year we will have our first Primary 8 class, who will also need a classroom.  Primary 8 is the last year of primary school in South Sudan. 

As you will see from the picture above, we have a block of foundations with only one classroom on it as we do not have the funds to build the remaining classrooms.  The foundations are intended for four classrooms altogether, so once these classrooms are built, we will have a classroom per class.  The cost of building these three classrooms on top of the foundations comes to around £4,500 per classroom. 

To see the problem visually look at the chart below.

B l o c k   1
Pre-primary A AM/ Primary 3 PM	Pre-primary B AM/ Primary 4 PM	Primary 1 AM	Primary 2 AM
B l o c k   2
Primary 5 all day	Primary 6 all day	Primary 7 all day	Teacher’s room
B l o c k   3
Storeroom	Foundations only	Foundations only	Foundations only

Other than this issue of buildings, school is going well.  One of our teachers, Brian, has recently started teaching the older pupils to play volleyball, which is a huge success.  It is hard to tear them away at the end of break time and they continue playing at the end of school.  We are hoping to find another primary school with a volleyball team, so they are able to compete.  UNICEF annually supplies various items to schools, (some more useful than others) including volleyball nets and balls.  Up until now the mounting pile of these has languished in our storeroom because we did not have a teacher who knew how to play this game.  We have 6 volleyball nets, which is definitely surplus to requirements!

Our pupils ready to start marching 
to the Girl Child Day venue.

We took part in the town’s Girl Child Day celebrations last week.  Girl Child Day is considered a very important day in South Sudan for promoting the importance of educating girls.  Our school agreed to participate in the main event by producing a song and also a Madi traditional dance.  It went very well indeed, with the head of the local government praising our school’s dancing in the final speech.  He invited me to visit the next day so the town council could make a contribution towards future dancing celebrations.  The amount was around $30, which will be used to buy costumes or drums. 

In order to participate in this outside event, we had the perennial problem of supplying uniforms to participants.  Many pupils had outgrown their uniforms and we have new pupils as well.  Nataline, one of our pre-primary teachers, is also a qualified tailor, so she worked hard to produce new uniforms for the participants as we did not have enough material or funds to provide uniforms for all.  Fortunately, there was enough leftover material from the tailoring session last year, so it was just a matter of paying her for her work.  She was being assisted by another tailor, who is a member of the clan who donated our school land.  In order to economize, we always ask those who have outgrown their uniforms to bring them back, so they can be passed on to smaller pupils; however, we cannot do this with the biggest pupils for obvious reasons.  The uniform material is costly, but very good quality.  It does not wear out easily and is colour-fast, which makes passing it on feasible.

After school volleyball practice
with Teacher Brian

So that the boys didn’t feel excluded, we organized an internal boys’ event in school on the same day as Girl Child Day.  Our school does not have the same problem of lack of girls as many other schools.  I think the main reason for this is that we do not charge school fees.  In a poor family, boys are generally prioritized if there is not enough money for all children to attend school.  Currently we have 185 pupils, of whom 91 are girls and 94 are boys.  We started the year with 276 pupils but lost a lot of pupils of both sexes in May and July due to the unrest mentioned in a previous post, in which many families fled to Uganda and have so far not returned.

We are expecting one of our teachers, Mohammed Hafish, to return to us in November after nearly three years away on a teacher training course.  I have been told that he has been an outstanding student.  Our pupils remember him with great affection and have often asked, “When is Teacher Mohammed coming back?”  The course should have ended after two years but was disrupted by Covid.  The teacher training college is run by Solidarity with South Sudan and is the best in the country.  We are fortunate that places at Solidarity are fully funded by their own donors.

Another development has been the addition of a debating session to the weekly timetable for Primary 5, 6 and 7.  We try to make the subjects topical, provocative and interesting.  Last week the motion for debate was ‘Polygamy is better than monogamy’.  Polygamy is the norm here, so this is very relevant.  Almost all our pupils are opposed to it.  They have firsthand experience of the difficulties between wives, cruelty to each others’ children, enhanced HIV infection and lack of money as a result of producing ridiculous numbers of children.  The ‘proposers’ struggled but managed to produce some points.

Your help in donating towards our school is very much appreciated.  I feel very happy to be able to report so many successes, especially in assisting such needy children to get an education, which is their only way out of extreme poverty.

This building of classrooms is our greatest challenge at the moment.  Is anyone able to help, or to point us in the direction of likely donors? 

We also have the costs of paying for the uniforms, which are much needed too, not to mention the ongoing monthly salaries of teachers and cooks.  I know these are less glamourous than physical structures, but a school without teachers cannot exist.

South Sudan’s exchange rate to the dollar is improving incrementally over two months up to 15^th November so that we will be in a favourable position (the rate will soon be double what it was in August).  It therefore seems a good time to help us and to get value for money.  If you can help, please contact me on rebeccamallinson1@gmail.com.