With help from Japan, Southern Sudan rebuilds its schools
July 2007: In 2007, Japan contributed $8.6 million towards UNICEF's work on education in Southern Sudan, aiding the region’s school-rebuilding efforts following two decades of civil war that devastated the education system there. With the contribution from the Government of Japan, “we have been able to focus on school construction,” explained UNICEF Representative in Sudan Ted Chaiban. “We have been able to construct 20 schools in south Sudan and rehabilitate another 20 schools, and the work is still ongoing.” To see this progress firsthand, the Japanese Ambassador to Sudan, His Excellency Yuichi Ishii, recently visited remote villages where new schools have been built through a partnership between Southern Sudan, Japan and UNICEF. Together with local schoolchildren, Mr. Ishii also celebrated the opening of a newly constructed school in Rumbek, the capital of Lakes State. Besides supporting school construction, Japan’s contribution has helped to provide 350,000 sets of textbooks benefiting 750,000 young students like those he met in Rumbek. Peace dividends, in bricks and mortar During the war, only an estimated 1 out of 100 girls in Southern Sudan finished primary school. The lack of appropriate school structures and separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys has been identified as a major factor that keeps children, especially girls, out of school. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement finally ended hostilities two years ago. In April 2006, the Government of Southern Sudan launched the ‘Go to School’ initiative. With UNICEF’s support, the campaign aims to rebuild the school system and get 1.6 million children back to the classroom. Meeting renewed demand for education More than 1.2 million children, many of them girls, were enrolled in schools by the end of 2007 – a major increase from the estimated 343,000 who were in school in Southern Sudan during the war. As more children enrol, more learning spaces and school supplies are needed, making Japan’s contribution an especially timely one. “Our contribution is a small part of the education programme of the Government of Sudan,” said Mr. Ishii. “We are very happy to be part of the rebuilding of this country, and promotion of education is part of the rebuilding process. “UNICEF and the people of two states, Unity and Lakes, are working hard to make the project possible,” he continued. “I am very much impressed with the performance of the people here.”
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