When is a School not a School?

I believe it is true that almost all parents, including those in Southern Sudan, want their children to receive a ‘good education’ – whatever that might mean. Even parents who have not received much formal education themselves grasp the notion that basic literacy and numeracy is important and that children should go to school.  

This morning I went to the Nile to fill some containers with purified water. It’s free to the people of Malakal but individuals must collect it – a burdensome task for the women and children carrying full, 20-litre containers on their heads. I saw one little girl at the taps. I wondered if she goes to school. Many children here do, well dressed in colourful uniforms, but many don’t.   

I started thinking of the Brother in Australia many years ago who tried to suggest gently to a parent that her son should wash more regularly. The mother retorted: 

‘I sent him to school for you to learn him, not smell him!’  

At various Education conferences I have listened to disturbing statistics about education in Southern Sudan: 

 ‘96% of teachers do not have a recognised qualification; 63% of teachers are completely untrained.’  ‘In our county, we have no competent teachers of English’. ‘We have several schools with six classes and only two teachers’ ‘Many of our classes have more than one hundred students’. ‘Children in Southern Sudan have the least access to primary education in the world.’  

‘Schooling’ in many places in Southern Sudan is delivered under a tree. Many ‘schools’ simply have no classrooms. A few days [...]