Fears have intensified in Sudan over the loss of the future of millions of students as the country’s war approaches its 17th month. Millions of students are out of school, millions are overschooled and hundreds of thousands are waiting to take exams that will allow them to enter university.
Since the outbreak of war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces in mid-April 2023, Sudan has been suffering from an education crisis, as studies have been suspended in about half of the country’s 18 states, and more than 90% of school-age children have been unable to access education, while experts warn that the continued disruption to education is leading to successive generations being left without exams.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said earlier that about 19 million children in Sudan, or one in three children, are still outside school walls.
She added that out of 19 million children, about 6.5 million have lost access to school due to increasing violence and insecurity in their areas, and about 10,400 schools in conflict-affected areas have closed.
The international organization said the loss of income would result in a lifetime loss of $26 billion for the generation of children affected by the war, stressing that Sudan is on the verge of becoming home to the world’s worst education crisis.
Commitment to exams
When the war broke out, more than 600,000 students were preparing to take the university secondary school certificate exam, and their situation is still ambiguous. United States, which led to the suspension of studies before resuming, from last May, in the Safe States.
A senior official of the Ministry of Education said that studies have resumed in the states of Nile, Northern, Red Sea, Kassala, Gedaref and Blue Nile, and partially in some localities of White Nile, Northern, Western and South Kordofan.
According to the official’s statement – to Al Jazeera Net – studies have been almost completely stopped in the five states of Darfur, Khartoum, Al Jazeera and Sennar, and he accused the Rapid Support Forces of destroying and looting schools in the Darfur region despite their control over 4 states.
The government official – who asked not to be named – said the education ministry was able to print the textbook outside the country and urged state governments to find shelters for displaced people residing in schools and provide teachers’ salaries, but some states were unable to arrange salaries due to limited resources.
Schools in the Nile and Northern states, as well as Tokar on the Red Sea, were also hit by rain and torrents, and hundreds of families whose homes collapsed took refuge in other schools, leading to the suspension of studies.
The future of millions of people is at risk
For his part, the Commissioner for Work Management at the Ministry of Education, Ahmed Al-Khalifa Omar, said that September 15 will be the last day to register and count students examining the secondary certificate for the upcoming class of 2023.
Omar said that the inventory of the locations of students taking the exams allows the ministry to identify the exam centers inside and outside the country, and he pledged to hold the exam within this year, explaining that students in dangerous states will show their locations once the inventory process is completed so that they can take the exam.
Regarding the cessation of studies for the second year in some states, Sami Al-Baqir, spokesman for the Central Committee of Teachers (independent), believes that the continuation of the war threatens the entire educational process, as well as the future of millions of students. students, after accumulating two classes of children who have reached school age (6 years), in particular. Their absorption rate before the war was between 50% and 70%.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Al-Baqir said that stopping education for a long period of time would cause a large number of students to drop out of school, and this would be worse than what happened during the “Corona” epidemic. After the war, they were forced to work to support their families and some of them will not return to study.
The spokesman revealed that the number of schools in the country is about 22 thousand, of which 14 thousand were affected by the war to varying degrees, and about 6 thousand schools housed displaced persons, and the number of students and children who have reached the school golden age is 19 million, while the number of teachers and workers in the sector is 350 thousand.
According to Al-Baqir, the initial inventory of stranded students who were scheduled to sit for the high school certificate exams last year shows that their number has reached 570,000, and more than half of them can sit in centers inside and outside the country, and there is a smaller group after them who are also waiting for the exam.
The solution is peace
According to him, saving the educational process is to stop the war, and if that is not possible, then both parties to the war are obliged to adhere to international humanitarian law by ensuring the safety of schools and homes and safe paths for education to continue and completeness and justice are achieved, so that education is present in all states and not in some of them.
Social science researcher Salwa Abdullah says that children who stopped their education during the war feel a prolonged void, which creates aggressive behavior, a tendency toward violence and the transition to the stage of personality disorders.
The researcher warns – in a statement to Al Jazeera Net – against the spread of smoking among children, due to the prolonged war, poverty, deprivation, the interruption of studies and the tendency to drop out, especially among adolescents.
He advises saving children from educational isolation through home schooling or online study in areas where internet services and electricity are available, so that they do not feel lost and neglected and do not think of abandoning education and marginal activities or resorting to work or engaging in combat.