English for South Sudan schools

A recently independent country South Sudan, will use English as its the medium of instruction for all subjects at its schools.

The new nation, which broke away from its northern neighbour, passed the Higher and General Education Bill recently which means all subjects from primary level will be taught in English.

“We will soon be teaching English for subjects like Mathematics and Science and Arabic and the same goes for all other subjects. Arabic will be taught only as a language subject,” said Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin.

After decades of civil war and neglect, only 16% of South Sudanese are literate, and very few of them are women. The government hopes the move will unify the new nation, which is thought to have over 60 indigenous languages. It is also to bring it into line with the education systems of most of its neigbouring countries.

“This will also make it easy for the syllabuses within South Sudan to fall within the context of East African syllabuses and universities”, Benjamin said. English was also made the official language in a new constitution last month, Benjamin said.

South Sudan has around 18,000 teachers, many of them from Kenya and Uganda. The government plans to train 7,000 teachers to use English as the language of instruction and build 11 national secondary schools covering all 10 of the country’s states.

The new act makes primary education free and compulsory for all in a country lacking basic infrastructure, where only 10% of children complete primary school. About 64% of its school-going population have never been to school.