A story of two generations in pursuit of education.

By John Gachie.

(This is a story of two men in Western Upper Nile Province of Sudan and their pursuit of education in South Sudan and outside. The writer spent over one month inside South Sudan from June 25 to 2nd August 2002 on assignment for an International Non-Governmental Agency.).

In Kerial Payam of Mayom County of Western Upper Nile Province in South Sudan, life is brutish, short and precarious as elements, both natural and man-made are part of a great conspiracy against the individual.

This is more apparent when one takes into consideration, that Western Upper Nile Province is at the epicenter of a bitter and bloody war with no signs of ending soon. In this regard, the people of the Province have to negotiate not only war, hunger displacement and terror but seek to celebrate life whatever the circumstances.

It is in this province that the reality of the South Sudan’s hunger for education is perhaps best exemplified. The contrast between one generation and the other in skill and educational level is brought out. In this case, the plight of a teacher (Stephen) and his pupil (Andrew) after a decade of forced separation and their eventual reunion early this year bears this out.

In the intervening decade, the teacher manages to acquire further education, though a refugee. The pupil also manages to further his education as an internally displaced person in Khartoum. There eventual re-union and their experiences capture the depth and need for education and knowledge in South Sudan.

For Andrew (second name withheld for security reasons), a 24 year-old Nuer man married to two wives and a father of three, the search for education and other life skills has been a journey full of obstacles.

In Kerial, Andrew was until he was forced to flee a militia attack to Mayun Jur Payam in eastern Bahr-el Ghazal Province in early August this year, the Social Secretary of the Sudanese Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA). In his position, Andrew was in charge of data compilation and analysis in the County reporting to the SRRA Secretary, a 47-year old former primary school teacher of Stephen.

Andrew ‘s qualification is a high school certificate that he got from a commercial college in Khartoum in 2000. He had got the job due to a combination of circumstances. For a start he was politically correct and was in good terms with the de facto power on the ground in the area-namely Commander Peter Gadet of the SPLA/M Western Upper Nile Command.

Commander Peter Gadet had as of early December 2002 changed sides and defected to the Sudanese government. This could lead to new power dispensation in the Province and mercifully will not affect Andrew’s career.

Another factor in his favour was that Stephen, the over all boss was once his teacher in primary school over a decade ago, then they went their different ways, only to meet early this year.

But their experiences in the intervening decade since the grand split in the main Southern Sudan Liberation Movement in the early 1990ies were as varied as they were different.

For Andrew then a 14-year old primary school pupil, the journey first led to Mankien, a town under Government control some 200 kilometers to the north, then to Khartoum a further 2000 kilometers to the north.

After his so-journ into Mankien, they stayed in a displaced peoples camp inside the Government controlled garrison town and he attended the camp school. The language of instruction was Arabic and he received the most rudiment of education. The main staple of his education was to recite the alphabet and study and recite the Koran. Being a Nuer he found the school in the camp quite different and was thrilled to have to follow his family to Khartoum.

However, on getting to Khartoum, he ended up in the huge displaced peoples camps in the outskirts of the Capital and was faced with another problem. This time round he only did not have to study in Arabic but also had to learn in English in post-primary school. From 1987 after completing his junior high school he joined a commercial college in Khartoum whose language of instruction was English and studied business and secretarial studies.

Early 2001 Andrew and his family and most others resident in Khartoum moved back to their villages in Western Upper Nile Province.

Now armed with a high school certificate, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association hired Andrew as a Social Secretary, despite having been away from the village for over a decade.

Though well qualified for the area, Andrew is one of six young men in the entire Payam with more than 9 years of schooling. According to some figures, 80 per cent or more of the group between six years and 25 years in South Sudan illiterate, while the figure for those between 14 years and 33 years in South Sudan is closer to 90 per cent illiteracy.

These figures are based on surveys carried out by United Nations network agencies of Unicerf, Unesco and United Nations Development Programme and international agencies working in the South.

The main reason for these high figures of illiteracy is war, now entering its 20th year since the outbreak in 1983. In the ensuing period, most schools in the South were destroyed, as the population fled due general insecurity. This generation, though young, and offering the best catchment group of active population segment is disabled as victims of the war.

This group is lacking in any life skills, have little by way of formal education and are functional illiterates. The only skill they have mastered is to wage war. However, for Andrew, his education though adequate and functional for the purposes of Western Upper Nile Province, is woefully deficient, especially in numeric and communication skills.

He was forever trying to improve his English by reading fiction. For the one week the Writer accompanied Andrew in his area of operation, his other constant companion was a Jeffery Archer’s fictional work, the Lucifer Connection, the only reading material in his possession.

For Stephen, the boss and Andrew’s former teacher, his fate was entirely different. At the break up of the unified Liberation Movement in South Sudan in 1992-3, Stephen was forced to flee to Kenya and stayed at a refugee camp for over seven years.

In the intervening period, Stephen like most other educated Sudanese had to survive the lengthy stay in the refugee camps. He doubled up as a teacher and clerical worker in the camp before he managed to move into Uganda and linked up with his comrades. In Uganda, Stephen was engaged as a teacher in a Sudanese refugee camp in the north of the country. He stayed in the camp until 2002 when he returned to his home village after eight years. In his years of exile, Stephen had managed to pursue correspondence courses in purchasing and supplies. He was lucky that he had a more congenial English speaking community in Kenya and Uganda.

On balance, Andrew the younger has had a disjointed education, for most instances, Andrew has reaped the whirlwind of the war while Stephen his teacher and a generation older has had a better education. This is the tragedy of South Sudan in that the youth and young adults and in particular the active segment of society is for most part illiterate.