It is rare to hear children reciting their school lessons while helping with housework or playing at home. But thanks to an education initiative called the Learning Village, the new habit might take root in Southern Sudan.

(A facilitator addresses teachers at an education workshop. © Akim Mugisa, courtesy SudanVotes)

The use of interactive radio instruction programmes is one of the pillars of the Learning Village, a project of the Government of South Sudan’s (GoSS) Department of Alternative Education Systems in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

According to Evalino Elias, an outreach coordinator, the Learning Village programme has been well received in all 59 participating schools of Yei River County in Central Equatoria State. “Children showed great interest in the use of radio sets,” he said. “The programme enhances pupils’ knowledge retention in schools.”

He added, however, that the programme is hampered by teacher transfers, the government’s civil service reform programme known as retrenchment (downsizing) and delays in payment of teachers’ salaries.

For all the anticipation in the run-up to South Sudan’s independence in July, the world’s newest nation can take no pride in having one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. Estimates range from 12-24%. After decades of conflict that crippled key sectors, development partners working with GoSS have been taking unprecedented steps to foster development, with particular emphasis on education.

To help reverse South Sudan’s poor quality of education and some the world’s lowest school attendance, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is supporting the Education Development Centre (EDC) to use radio as a means of delivering high quality education to children in Southern Sudan as well as the disputed regions of Abyei, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan.

The EDC trains selected teachers in Southern Sudan Interactive Radio Instruction (SSIRI), which aims to improve the quality of basic education and make it more widely available. Another objective is to strengthen English language skills across all age groups by using radio as a mode of instruction.

Targeting primary school children up to fourth grade, the Learning Village focuses on local language literacy, English, mathematics and life skills. Solar-powered radio sets are used to play pre-recorded programmes that are broadcasted on local radio stations. Digital MP3 players substitute radios in areas without access to transmission signals.

Another programme, Radio-Based Education for All (RABEA) targets audiences with various levels of English language skills, focusing on arithmetic, health, and civic education programmes such as disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR). Elections, land ownership, democracy and women’s rights also form part of the curriculum.

Habib Muhamad, an avid radio listener in Yei, praised RABEA as a source of information about elections, democracy and other subjects. “It is through this radio program that I was able to understand my rights to vote or to stand in an election,” he said. “I have also learned that land in Southern Sudan belongs to the people but its management is regulated by our government.”

The initiative faces some logistical challenges. Godfrey Data Joseph, a deputy head teacher at Payawa Primary School in Mugwo Payam, said teachers are unable to implement the programme when they’re transferred to areas with different local languages.

Joel Yeka, a teacher at Lizira Primary School in Yei Town Payam, acknowledges the importance of the programme’s packaging, including the use of catchy songs. But he sees a potential drawback: although pupils and teachers follow the Learning Village broadcasts, they do not take notes in the exercise books. “This may make pupils lazy” about writing in the future, Yeka warned.

SSIRI, a six-year programme begun in 2007, is expected to end in 2012 when it will be taken over by the Ministry of Education Science and Technology.

(original article at SudanVotes)

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Read Marvis Birungi’s article School syllabi to include human rights and listen to her audio report:

In the offices of Sudan Radio Service in Nairobi, Kenya. (February 2009)

While in Nairobi, I made contact with Southern Sudan as it expresses itself in exile, taking refuge from the past while building for the future. One of the first visits was to the offices of the Sudan Radio Service (SRS). This organisation is Southern Sudan’s first independent broadcast provider of news and information about Southern Sudan. It is broadcast on various FM and shortwave signals. Their first broadcast was made on July 30, 2003, 1 1/2 years before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Khartoum-based Government of Sudan and the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). SRS broadcasts in English, Arabic and eight Sudanese ethnic languages, and focuses exclusively on Issues and events in Sudan.

I met with John Tanza, the radio station’s Deputy Chief of Party (a title that reflects the primary funder of SRS: USAID). We discussed possible collaborations between me and SRS correspondents based in Southern Sudan. We decided that I should meet with SRS journalists that work from areas I visit to collaborate on stories of common interest.

Dan Eiffe in his Sudan Mirror office in Nairobi, Kenya. (February 2009)

In fact, we have planned that I hook up with Martin Siba, the SRS Wau Bureau Producer. I will be going to Wau after Juba on Wednesday, March 4 for a few days before continuing onward to Aweil, Warrap and Abyei.

Another place I went to visit are the Sudan Mirror. The paper’s publisher and founder, Dan Eiffe (photo) invited me into his office and told me stories of when he was a young Irish priest in South Africa and later in Southern Sudan. He told me that in June 1998 he stood in the US Congress and said to the congressmen and women during his testimony, “Southern Sudan is apartheid at its worst. Apartheid is a tea party in comparison to what happens in Southern Sudan.” Below is an audio interview I did with Dan Eiffe in February 2009.

Outside the modest grounds of Sud Academy in Nairobi, Kenya (February 2009)

Southern Sudanese refugees left Sudan during the civil war in numbers of about one million. This does not include the internally displaced people (IDPs) that rang from 4.5 to 5 million people. Many refugees ended up in Kenya and among these are the students of Sud Academy, a primary / secondary school based in a poor neighbourhood of Nairobi.

Partial funding for Sud Academy comes from Canadian Aid for South Sudan (CASS), through which I learnt of the school and who gave me contact with, Kellee Jacobs a Canadian volunteer who bfought me to the school. She wrote The Right to Education – Sud Academy’s Case Study. I’ve posted more photos from the school here.