Education officials in South Sudan’s Lainya County say plans are underway to construct a public secondary school in Lainya town, following persistent cries from residents.
Just last week, several primary school pupils and parents complained to Radio Tamazuj that the lack of a secondary school in the county has led to a high rate of school dropout and early marriage as parents cannot afford to send their children out of the county for further studies.
However, speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Monday, Lainya County education director Festo Ladu Luate revealed that the community has allocated a piece of land measuring 200 by 500 square meters for the construction of the school.
“I am very happy because the landlords this morning have shown us the school land in the presence of the county executive director. I also want to tell you that this is big news for the learners in Lainya County. We have registered 96 candidates sitting for this year’s primary leaving examinations in Lainya County,” he said.
Ladu called on the state education ministry to train and employ secondary school teachers to serve the proposed public secondary school.
Mathew Ladu, the Paramount Chief of Lainya County said the allocation of the land is part of the community’s contribution towards the construction of the new secondary school aimed at addressing the education challenges there.
“We don’t have a single secondary school in Lainya town and with this development initiative, we are very happy and we welcome it to help our school-going children access good education within Lainya town and for us, as a community, we shall support this important community development project in Lainya county,” Ladu said.
For his part, Lainya County commissioner Emmanuel Khamis appreciated the community for allocating land for education development projects in the county saying the state and county governments will fund the project.
He said an engineering team is working on the technical drawings for the start of the construction project as soon as possible.
“As a local government, this is a priority for us to have a secondary school in the county and it is also provided in the constitution that there must be a secondary school in each Payam of the county and a primary school in each Boma and a land has been allocated by the community with a size of 200×500 square meters and we have planned that we shall turn it into a boarding public school in the future and I have already assigned an engineer to work on the drawings and bill of quantity and for the start, we shall put up two blocks in which one block will be four classes from senior one to senior four and the other block will be an administration block for the school,” he explained.
Khamis said the mixed boarding public secondary school will be called Agrey Jaden Secondary School to honor the Late Jaden, a veteran politician from Lainya County.
He is appealing to development partners operating in the state to extend support to the state government for the construction of the school.
Meanwhile, Sebit Martin John, a civil society activist and also the executive director of Community Development Center (CDC) a national NGO operating in the country urges the government to prioritize the development of education infrastructure in the county.
Sebit applauded the county government under the leadership of commissioner Khamis for its practical steps in promoting development in the area.
“We want to see that the school construction starts as soon as possible to give hope to the P.8 candidates to pass with hope to continue with their studies in the county. That is one motivating factor to perform well,” Martin said. “We urge the county government that this planned school should not end in the paper. It has to be implemented practically on the ground to uplift the hope of learning in Lainya County.”
Sebit said the 2016 conflict has negatively affected learning and school infrastructure in Lainya County especially Loka Secondary School.