Western Bahr el Ghazal State’s Wau County missed out on joining the rest of the country in writing the 2024 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) due to a lack of sufficient teachers and a poor education infrastructure.
According to multiple sources, many of the schools in the county were vandalized and some were occupied by soldiers after the war which erupted in December 2013 and the 2016 conflict that made residents flee from their homes.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj, several Wau County residents voiced their concerns about the poor state of education and urged the government and UN agencies to support learning in the area.
Amilia Ufo said the main problem facing the communities in Mboro Payam is the lack of teachers.
“We are suffering and the main problem with the schools is that there are no teachers and when we came out of the war, we did not see anything done for us,” she lamented. “What you are seeing here are just walls with no proper classroom buildings and our children have no future.”
Another resident, Suzan Khamis, says many of the young girls were on the run during the years of conflict but have since failed to return to school and others have now become very young mothers.
“We have young enough girls who were on the run and could not join nursery school and the older ones failed to continue with learning. Some have babies and they want to continue studying but there are no teachers,” said explained. “My message to the government is that we need help, so, let them come to support us with teachers because if there are no schools, the nation will not progress.”
On his part, the chief of the area, Khamis Lokaki, urged the state government to address the issue of learning expeditiously.
“We need the state government to look into the matter and address it so that communities focus on peace and stability. There is a school in Rihan Boma and an NGO was working there but two weeks ago, our brothers there arrested their people and this caused disorder,” he said. “At the end of all this, a nation which is emerging out of conflict still needs services. Currently, we have only a church school but those working all volunteers are working without pay. We urge the state government to look into the issue of learning carefully because without learning, nothing will go well.”
While ringing the examination bell in Wau Town on Monday morning, the acting governor, who is also the deputy governor, Zackaria Joseph Garang, acknowledged the challenges faced by the education sector in Wau County and pledged to improve the learning environment.
“I have heard from the minister that there are no centers in Wau County and it is disturbing to hear that no single candidate is sitting PLE in Ngo-Baggari. This is dangerous and we need to review it because it is a setback to us all,” he stated. “We cannot continue with is situation because this means the destruction of a generation and the nation as a whole.”
A total of 4,836 candidates, 2,469 females, and 2,367 males, are writing the PLE in Western Bahr el Ghazal State at 22 examination centers, 12 within Wau municipality, 8 in Jur River County, and 2 in Raja County. Wau County has no examination center. There are a total of 78,859 candidates sitting across the country.