South Sudan is the world’s newest country, but it has inherited an education system that is in desperate need of renewal and reform. One aspect of that process of renewal is the adoption of English as the language of instruction for all subjects from grade 4 at primary school. Teachers need good linguistic abilities to understand and deliver the curriculum – but many primary school teachers are untrained or poorly trained and have limited proficiency in English.
Since May 2017, WTI staff and consultants working with us have been working hard to develop and trial a wide range of teaching materials in the English language for primary school teachers in South Sudan.
South Sudan faces many challenges if it is to increase access to education and improve the learning that takes place in schools and colleges. One of those challenges is to increase the number of trained teachers – and that is one of our priorities for the next five years.
South Sudan has a very small secondary sector, with less than 250 secondary schools and approximately 3,000 teachers. While governments and donors have focused their attention on increasing access to primary schooling in recent years, the secondary sector has been neglected. In particular, secondary school teachers have had few opportunities for training or continuous professional development, leading to doubts about the quality of secondary education.
