Publication: Pre-Primary Education in South Sudan: Current Opportunities and Challenges
Loading...
Date
2019-07-31
ISSN
Published
2019-07-31
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The objective of this report is to support evidence-based decision making for the pre-primary education system in South Sudan, and to identify critical bottlenecks and potential pathways for further engagement aimed at improving and rebuilding the subsector. To understand the current landscape of pre-primary education in South Sudan, this report draws on findings from three key sources: (i) review of early childhood education in contexts of fragility, conflict and violence; (ii) situation analysis of pre-primary education in South Sudan; and (iii) findings from the pre-primary Stakeholder Diagnostic Workshop held in Juba, South Sudan on February 11-14, 2019 facilitated by UNICEF and the World Bank. Findings from a review of all available policy documents and outcomes of the stakeholder diagnostic workshop are organized in this report by the five action areas specified in UNICEF’s pre-primary education diagnostic toolkit: (i) effective planning and use of resources; (ii) curriculum development and implementation; (iii) teachers and other personnel; (iv) families and communities; and (v) monitoring, regulation and quality assurance. The report ends with stakeholder recommendations for creating an enabling environment for pre-primary education in South Sudan.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank Group; UNICEF. 2019. Pre-Primary Education in South Sudan: Current Opportunities and Challenges. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32759 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Access to Pre-Primary Education and Progression in Primary School(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02)Evidence on the impacts of a large-scale expansion in pre-primary education is limited and mostly circumscribed to high- and middle-income nations. This study estimates the effects of such an expansion on progression in primary school in rural communities in Guatemala, where the number of pre-primary schools increased from about 5,300 to 11,500 between 1998 and 2005. Combining administrative and population census data in a difference-in-differences framework, the analysis finds that access to pre-primary education increased by 2.4 percentage points the proportion of students that progress adequately and attend sixth grade by age 12. These positive although limited effects suggest the need for complementary actions to produce substantial improvements in adequate progression.Publication Education in the Republic of South Sudan : Status and Challenges for a New System(Washington, DC, 2012-06-22)This education status report (ESR), prepared at the request of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), provides a comprehensive snapshot of an education sector that is emerging from a long period of civil strife. It confirms the strong appetite among the people for education; in turn, more educated citizens are needed to provide the bedrock of the new country and its prospects. The purpose of this report is to enhance the knowledge base for policy development in the education sector and, more broadly, create a platform for engaging a diverse audience in dialogue on education policies in the new country. The ultimate aim is to help develop a shared vision for the future of the education system among government, citizens, and partners in Africa's newest nation. The report clearly shows that the education system in South Sudan faces all the challenges of a new nation that is making a visible effort to catch up quickly from a very low base by rapidly increasing student enrollment. These challenges include a concentration of students in the early grades; a high proportion of overage students, repetition, and dropout; and weak levels of student learning. Further, the report indicates that South Sudan is beginning to feel the effects of its success at increasing enrollment at the primary level with growing demand for secondary and higher education. The report also highlights the low overall quality of education, and emphasizes that quality of education and accountability of the education sector should become central considerations early on in the development of the education system. Finally, the report emphasizes the importance of South Sudan's unique Alternative Education System (AES), which will continue to play a central part in the education system for years to come. The majority of youth and adults in the country today may never benefit from formal basic education, but their learning needs must be met if South Sudan is to build a solid state and society. The AES is currently offering accelerated learning programs to more than 200,000 youth and adults and holds significant promise.Publication Supporting Preprimary Parent Engagement in South Sudan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-29)This literature review aims to understand the design and content of successful preprimary parenting programs specifically those implemented in fragile, conflict, and violent contexts. This document serves as a resource guide for the creation of a preprimary parenting program for the South Sudanese context, to enhance school readiness of children between the ages of 3 to 5 years through basic literacy, numeracy, and socio emotional skills. This paper provides a brief overview of the benefits of parent engagement early in life and explores eight parenting programs whose design and implementation can be useful to increase the engagement of parents in preprimary skill development in South Sudan. Bearing in mind the context of South Sudan, five key criteria that guided selection of the programs included: (i) low cost of implementation, (ii) use of local resources, (iii) creation of contextually relevant curriculum, (iv) supporting parents who do not know how to read and write, and (v) evidence of benefits following empirical testing. It is important to have a clear picture of the lived experience of young children, their families and communities in South Sudan prior to designing a program that is relevant and appropriately meets their needs. This paper provides a brief overview of existing literature on the benefits of parent engagement early in life and explores eight parenting programs that have been designed and implemented in Ghana, Chad, Cameroon, Rwanda, Liberia, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon to boost parent engagement in the lives of their young children. By doing this, the paper aims to create a resource document that can inform the development of a context-specific parenting program model for South Sudan.Publication Pre-Primary Education in Mongolia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03)Sustaining in recent years expenditure on early childhood education (ECE) at over a fifth of its education budget, Mongolia is a relatively high spender on pre-primary education. This report examines structural and process aspects of quality in Mongolian kindergartens, along with early development outcomes among children enrolled in these kindergartens, to assess the effectiveness and equity of the country's public investments in ECE. The analysis shows that while the last decade saw tremendous progress in improving access to preschool overall, the most disadvantaged and vulnerable are still excluded from the system. Further, an assessment of child development outcomes shows that even after significant exposure to formal preschool services in the public sector, socioeconomic gaps in outcomes remain large. At the same time, potential areas where relatively low-cost investments could reap significant gains remain unexploited. Key among these is use of home- or community-based ECE interventions that could improve school preparedness among children in rural areas not enrolled in preschools. Another is the potential for an expanded role for the private sector in urban areas.Publication Strengthening Kazakhstan's Education Systems : An Analysis of PISA 2009 and 2012(Washington, DC, 2014-12-03)Kazakhstan's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 performance improved markedly compared to 2009, and indicated a narrowing achievement gap among students. Math and science performance improvements equivalent to more than half a year of schooling were achieved. According to the OECD, 40 points in PISA is equivalent to what students learn in one year of schooling. The improvements reduced the gap with other countries in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) by almost half. Moreover, the performance improvements of the lowest achievers in 2009 and 2012 outpaced those of their higher achieving peers at a rate that compares favorably against OECD countries. However, performance on reading improved only marginally and overall reading achievement remained low, with some groups of students actually performing worse in 2012. Kazakhstan's PISA performance places it significantly behind other countries, especially in reading. Countries with income per capita levels similar to Kazakhstan's (namely Turkey and Russia) performed significantly better in math, science, and reading. Most importantly, Kazakh reading scores still lag about one year of schooling behind the ECA average and almost two years of schooling behind OECD. Public expenditures on education are lowest in Kazakhstan compared with other PISA 2012 participating countries, which likely hampers the country's ability to ensure effective learning for all. Any increase in public spending on education will have to be aligned with careful policy reform decision making, since resources alone do not guarantee attainment of desired education outcomes.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge : Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)This book seeks to achieve a balance, describing challenges that are being faced as well as developments that are underway. It seeks a balance in terms of the voices heard, including not just voices of the North commenting on the South, but voices from the South, and in concert with the North. It seeks to provide the voices of specialists and generalists, of those from international and local organizations, from academia and the field. It seeks a diversity of views and values. Such diversity and complexity are the reality of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) today. The major focus of this book is on SSA from the Sahel south. Approximately 130 million children between birth and age 6 live in SSA. Every year 27 million children are born, and every year 4.7 million children under age 5 die. Rates of birth and of child deaths are consistently higher in SSA than in any other part of the world; the under-5 mortality rate of 163 per 1,000 is twice that of the rest of the developing world and 30 times that of industrialized countries (UNICEF 2006). Of the children who are born, 65 percent will experience poverty, 14 million will be orphans affected by HIV/AIDS directly and within their families and one-third will experience exclusion because of their gender or ethnicity.Publication Zimbabwe(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-03-01)This report presents an assessment of Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector disaster risk and management capacity. The findings indicate that Zimbabwe is highly exposed to agricultural risks and has limited capacity to manage risk at various levels. The report shows that disaster-related shocks along Zimbabwe’s agricultural supply chains directly translate to volatility in agricultural GDP. Such shocks have a substantial impact on economic growth, food security, and fiscal balance. When catastrophic disasters occur, the economy absorbs the shocks, without benefiting from any instruments that transfer the risk to markets and coping ability. The increasing prevalence of ‘shock recovery-shock’ cycles impairs Zimbabwe’s ability to plan and pursue a sustainable development path. The findings presented here confirm that it is highly pertinent for Zimbabwe to strengthen the capacity to manage risk at various levels, from the smallholder farmer, to other participants along the supply chain, to consumers (who require a reliable, safe food supply), and ultimately to the government to manage natural disasters. The assessment provides the following evidence on sources of risks and plausible risk management solutions. It is our hope that the report contributes to action by the Government of Zimbabwe to adopt a proactive and integrated risk management strategy appropriate to the current structure of the agricultural sector.Publication World Development Report 1984(New York: Oxford University Press, 1984)Long-term needs and sustained effort are underlying themes in this year's report. As with most of its predecessors, it is divided into two parts. The first looks at economic performance, past and prospective. The second part is this year devoted to population - the causes and consequences of rapid population growth, its link to development, why it has slowed down in some developing countries. The two parts mirror each other: economic policy and performance in the next decade will matter for population growth in the developing countries for several decades beyond. Population policy and change in the rest of this century will set the terms for the whole of development strategy in the next. In both cases, policy changes will not yield immediate benefits, but delay will reduce the room for maneuver that policy makers will have in years to come.Publication World Development Report 2017(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-01-30)Why are carefully designed, sensible policies too often not adopted or implemented? When they are, why do they often fail to generate development outcomes such as security, growth, and equity? And why do some bad policies endure? This book addresses these fundamental questions, which are at the heart of development. Policy making and policy implementation do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, they take place in complex political and social settings, in which individuals and groups with unequal power interact within changing rules as they pursue conflicting interests. The process of these interactions is what this Report calls governance, and the space in which these interactions take place, the policy arena. The capacity of actors to commit and their willingness to cooperate and coordinate to achieve socially desirable goals are what matter for effectiveness. However, who bargains, who is excluded, and what barriers block entry to the policy arena determine the selection and implementation of policies and, consequently, their impact on development outcomes. Exclusion, capture, and clientelism are manifestations of power asymmetries that lead to failures to achieve security, growth, and equity. The distribution of power in society is partly determined by history. Yet, there is room for positive change. This Report reveals that governance can mitigate, even overcome, power asymmetries to bring about more effective policy interventions that achieve sustainable improvements in security, growth, and equity. This happens by shifting the incentives of those with power, reshaping their preferences in favor of good outcomes, and taking into account the interests of previously excluded participants. These changes can come about through bargains among elites and greater citizen engagement, as well as by international actors supporting rules that strengthen coalitions for reform.Publication Ten Steps to a Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation System : A Handbook for Development Practitioners(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004)An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), civil society, international organizations, and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and real results have increased, there is an attendant need for enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs, and projects. This handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system. These steps begin with a 'readiness assessment' and take the practitioner through the design, management, and importantly, the sustainability of such systems. The handbook describes each step in detail, the tasks needed to complete each one, and the tools available to help along the way.