Authorities in Yei River County have launched the ‘Back to Learning’ campaign to help kick-start education for both boys and girls over the weekend.
Schooling has been severely affected following conflict in the area.
Speaking during the launch of the campaign in Yei town, Emmanuel Sebit, Director of Yei County Education, said creating an enabling environment through peace and stability is the only hope to eradicate illiteracy in the country.
“I stand here, I want to tell you that, before the war, we had a total number of 65,000 learners registered in 2016, but today 2017, the current statistics of learners has drastically dropped to less than 10,000. It is really so painful that we have almost lost many of our learners due to the current conflict in the county,” he said.
Emmanuel further said most of the rural schools in the county have been destroyed and some of them have been turned into military barracks and fighting grounds.
While presenting a song during the event, pupils from Narrow Gate Nursery School, urged the warring parties to stop the ongoing conflict to pave the way for peace so they could go back to school.
Taban Joseph Silvio, Program Coordinator for Plan International, an NGO supporting the education sector in South Sudan, also urged the parties to the conflict to give peace a chance to allow children to access better education.
“It is our collective responsibility as partners in development to ensure that we all put the resources to develop the education sector in South Sudan. Currently, we are distributing learning and sanitary materials to all school-going children in Yei River County,” he said.
Photo: School pupils matching during the launch of back to school campaign in Yei. (Radio Tamazuj)