South Sudan 4.3

The impact of language policy and practice on children’s learning: Evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa 2016 In Depth Case Study South Sudan 4.3. South Sudan Constitutional support for the use of Sudanese languages in early primary school indicates 4.3.1. Background and current status that possibilities do exist for supporting and The issue of language of instruction is a critical resourcing such a system. issue in South Sudan, due partly to political This possible future for South Sudan’s reasons and partly to the poor condition of the education system has its challenges, however. county’s education systems. One challenge has to do with the limited The earliest language policies in Sudan’s degree to which the indigenous languages formal education under the British colonial have been developed so far for written use rule included space for local languages in and formal learning. The number of languages early primary school, followed by transition to spoken by South Sudanese communities is English. However from 1956, as part of the another challenge, since elevating some of newly-independent nation of Sudan, southern them to more prestigious uses in school and Sudan experienced the imposition of Arabic as governance risks resentment from those whose the only language of instruction throughout the languages are not receiving similar attention. education system. This has been interpreted A third challenge has to do with the limited as part of an effort by the northern Sudanese national and local capacity for developing and government to eradicate the distinct cultural, maintaining the infrastructures and resources linguistic and religious features of the south needed to build an effective multilingual (du Toit, 2014, p, 250). Between 1972 and education system. 1983, mother tongue-based education returned It is also important to understand the position to southern Sudan, under the leadership of of Arabic in this context. The choice of the Institute for Regional Languages and English as a medium of instruction has posed the Southern Regional Ministry of Education significant learning challenges for South (Marshall, 2012, pp. 188-189). Sudanese citizens who have migrated from Upon achieving independence from the Sudan (Breidlid, 210, p. 570). Hammond Republic of Sudan in 2011, the Government (2013, p. 9) notes that the government of of South Sudan selected English as its official South Sudan has made a policy decision to language. This choice is understandable; provide continued learning in Arabic from given the linguistic and political history of Grade 4 through secondary school for children the country, the current official English policy returning from the north. Du Toit (2014, p. is a strong and predictable statement about 364) and others believe that the move from national autonomy and political alignment. Arabic to English as the language of wider However, the very limited familiarity of the communication will be a gradual process. population with the English language does The sociolinguistic situation of Juba Arabic not bode well for its use as the language of (also called Southern Arabic) in South Sudan instruction from Grade 4. is different from that of the Arabic spoken On the other hand, with such a large in the north. Du Toit (2014, p. 364) notes proportion of the population speaking only that Juba Arabic is “still the preferred lingua indigenous languages (including Juba Arabic, franca for most South Sudanese.” Calderbank which is also indigenous to the region), and (2012) agrees, noting its extensive use in with such an undeveloped central system for media, commerce and governance. However, at formal learning, a concerted effort to develop least as of 2012, the South Sudan Ministry of Sudanese languages of instruction could be Education had no plans to include Juba Arabic a significant tool for building an effective in its language policy. national education system. As Hammond (2013, p. 20) notes, “education can only be 4.3.2. Evidence on language and learning lifesaving, life sustaining and contribute to in South Sudan stability and peace if children and parents can There has been little documented research on understand the messages and lessons taught.” language and learning in South Sudan over 1 South Sudan the years. The poverty and marginalization Table 4.3.2. Access to Grade 1 and 8 in South of the area when it was a part of Sudan Sudan (from World Bank, 2012) resulted in little academic effort directed towards questions of local language-medium National average Boys Girls learning. At the same time, evidence on the Probability of entering ineffectiveness of English medium instruction 55% 48% in the country has been forthcoming in recent Grade 1 Probability of entering years. 24% 17% Grade 8 World Bank 2012 education report A World Bank report on the status of education The number of out-of-school children aged 8 to in South Sudan (World Bank, 2012) contains 15 averages 53 per cent nationwide, and up to several key observations. The report describes 58 per cent in rural areas (p. 58). In addition, a Service Delivery Study by the Ministry 69 per cent of citizens aged up to 40 years old of Education in 2010. As part of the study, are non-literate (p. 60). a test of learning achievement in (English) language and mathematics was given to UNICEF education profile 1,800 primary school students from 107 UNICEF’s overall profile of education in South mostly urban schools, in four states. The Sudan99 is similarly bleak. It notes that South test used questions taken from the Trends in Sudan’s education indicators are among the International Mathematics and Science Study worst in the world. Only 13 per cent of primary (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assessment tools. The schools in the country offer the full primary mean scores for the 1,800 students were cycle, from Grade 1 to Grade 8; the completion 29 per cent in mathematics and 35 per cent rate for primary schooling is less than 10 per in (English) language (World Bank, 2012, p. cent, one of the lowest in the world. 67). The report notes a significant rural-urban 100 distinction in education (p. 61). Thus these A UNICEF report of January 2014 presented scores, because they reflect a primarily urban a more graphic picture of the education testing cohort, are likely to be higher than environment in the capital city; it described what would be found in more rural areas where hundreds of displaced students in Juba, taking English is even less familiar to the students. their primary leaving examination within the protection of UN compounds as fighting The World Bank report also indicates that the continued around the city. It is impossible not general profile of education in South Sudan is to be moved by the comment of one 19-year- one of poor education access and low learning old finishing his exam: “Not only have I lost achievement; the table below describes some four brothers and a friend during the clashes, of the access challenges (World Bank, 2012, but I lost all my books when we had to flee our p. 57). home.” 99 http://www.unicef.org/southsudan/education.html. Accessed 11 March, 2016. 100 http://www.unicef.org/southsudan/media_school-exams.html. Accessed 11 March, 2016. 2 The impact of language policy and practice on children’s learning South Sudan 4.3.3. Issues and challenges excellent basis for building an effective multilingual education system. The languages Peace, education and local languages of South Sudan are very much alive, with many South Sudan is an vivid example of the way possibilities of institutional support for their civil conflict creates an extremely inhospitable written use and development. International environment for the growth of effective education systems. Unquestionably, the agencies involved in helping to build major cause of the challenging education South Sudan’s education system could be environment in South Sudan today is the instrumental in bringing about strong mother decades-long series of civil wars experienced tongue-based multilingual education, if they by its people. The ethnic nature of these were to unanimously prioritize and support it. conflicts has heightened the challenges of establishing local language-based education Juba Arabic and national identity systems, since inter-ethnic tension is not a supportive environment for the development The position of Juba Arabic is sociolinguistically of community languages on a national scale. controversial: it is widely used as a lingua Every effort to bring reconciliation and peace franca and even a mother tongue in South to the communities of this country will Sudan, yet it is ineligible for official recognition enhance the chances of building an education in the school system because it is reminiscent system that delivers strong student learning of decades of oppression from the north. This outcomes. clash between pedagogical appropriateness and political unacceptability renders a potentially A fertile sociolinguistic context for multilingual effective language of instruction useless. education Presumably, not until Juba Arabic loses its Assuming that peace can be achieved and unfortunate link to the north in the minds of sustained to build strong national education South Sudanese leaders will it have a chance to systems, the sociolinguistic and historical be seen as the effective language of instruction environment of South Sudan could be an that it could be. Evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa 3 The impact of language policy and practice on children’s learning 4 The impact of language policy and practice on children’s learning.

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