Publication: Education in the Republic of South Sudan : Status and Challenges for a New System
Loading...
Published
2012-06-22
ISSN
Date
2013-04-10
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
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.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2012. Education in the Republic of South Sudan : Status and Challenges for a New System. Africa Human Development;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13136 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Education in Sub-Saharan Africa : A Comparative Analysis(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012-06-26)As in most countries worldwide, Sub-Saharan African countries are striving to build their human capital so they can compete for jobs and investments in an increasingly globalized world. In this region, which includes the largest number of countries that have not yet attained universal primary schooling, the ambitions and aspirations of Sub-Saharan African countries and their youth far exceed this basic goal. Over the past 20 years, educational levels have risen sharply across Sub-Saharan Africa. Already hard at work to provide places in primary schools for all children, most countries of the region are also rapidly expanding access to secondary and tertiary levels of education. Alongside this quantitative push is a growing awareness of the need to make sure that students are learning and acquiring the skills needed for life and work. Achieving education of acceptable quality is perhaps an even greater challenge than providing enough school places for all. Thus, Sub-Saharan African countries are simultaneously confronting many difficult challenges in the education sector, and much is at stake. This book gives those concerned with education in Sub-Saharan Africa an analysis of the sector from a cross-country perspective, aimed at drawing lessons that individual country studies alone cannot provide. A comparative perspective is useful not only to show the range of possibilities in key education policy variables but also to learn from the best performers in the region. (Although the report covers 47 Sub- Saharan African countries whenever possible, some parts of the analysis center on the region's low-income countries, in particular, a sample of 33 low-income countries). Although countries ultimately must make their own policy choices and decide what works best in their particular circumstances, Sub-Saharan African countries can benefit from learning about the experiences of other countries that are faced with, or have gone through, similar development paths. Given the large number of countries included in the analysis, the book finds that Sub-Saharan African countries have more choices and more room for maneuver than will appear if attention were focused on only one or a few country experiences. Countries can make better choices when understanding the breadth of policy choices available to them. They are well advised, however, to evaluate the applicability of policy options to their contexts and to pilot and evaluate the results for performance and subsequent improvement.Publication Philippines : Basic Education Public Expenditure Review(World Bank, Pasig City, Philippines, 2012)The 2010 Philippines Basic Education Public Expenditure Review (BEPER) provides an overview of public expenditures and outcomes in the basic education sector since 2000. The PER team intends this analysis to assist the Department of Education (DepED) in setting policy priorities and in making decisions on resource allocation, utilization, and management. In this review, we analyze trends in education performance as they relate to the Philippines' Education for All (EFA) goals and the objectives of the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA). The analysis traces trends in government spending and their impact on basic education inputs and outcomes. It also examines the equity dimensions of the education outcomes and spending across geographic areas, households of different income levels, and gender. It examine in detail the processes for executing DepED's priority programs such as the provision of new teaching posts, school buildings, furniture, and textbooks, and we identify potential bottlenecks that slow implementation. Although the Government of the Philippines has committed to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and EFA goals by 2015, its level of investment in basic education is not sufficient for realizing these commitments. The PER analysis suggests that although the basic education sector needs additional resources for rapidly expanding the supply of key inputs for quality education services, unless efforts are intensified to improve budget execution and even if resources were available, merely increasing allocation would be unlikely to result in actual increases in the larger number of critical inputs and their efficient deployment.Publication Education Reform in Mozambique : Lessons and Challenges(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012)The report opens with a brief description of the conceptual framework that guided the analysis as well as the data used. The next chapter presents the analysis of changes in household behavior and educational outcomes related to the implementation of the reforms, at both the primary and secondary levels. The descriptive nature of this analysis does not allow for inferences regarding the effects of the reforms on enrollment and demand for education. The following chapter presents the results of an econometric impact analysis of the reforms to quantify the magnitude of the effects on enrollment. In considering priorities for the future, the Government is paying increasing attention to the impact of the investments in education on growth, jobs, and poverty reduction, as measured by increased earnings from employment, and particularly by improving opportunities for the labor force to move to higher productivity activities and livelihoods. The next chapter presents the results on the changing structure of employment in Mozambique between 2003 and 2008, the impacts of education on employment opportunities, and the implications of these changes for education policy. The final chapter integrates the education and labor force analyses and provides strategic recommendations as Mozambique continues to improve educational outcomes, particularly for those population groups that have had the most difficulty entering and remaining in school.Publication Education in Sierra Leone : Present Challenges, Future Opportunities(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)The purpose of this report is to provide an analysis of the education sector that enables a shared understanding among stakeholders, and thus lays a foundation for the preparation of an Education Sector Plan. With this objective in mind, the study outlines the current status of the education sector and highlights issues that policy makers need to address to move the sector forward. It also simulates a few policy scenarios and their financial implications to facilitate discussions about future feasible, affordable, and sustainable policy options. The coverage of this report -- a stock-taking exercise based on data, studies, reports, and documents available up to the 2004/05 school year -- is limited to key factors, including access, quality, equity, management, and finance, and has an emphasis on basic education.Publication Vietnam(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-06)This study examines the changes in Vietnam's primary and secondary education over the past 20 years as well as key factors that affect such critical educational outcomes as attendance, grade attainment, and student achievement in order to derive implications for public education policy. It is divided into an analytical report and shorter overview/policy report. The study finds significant improvement in attendance, attainment, and achievement across all populations. Nonetheless, vulnerable populations (in particular the poorest and ethnic minorities) continue to fare poorly as a result of persistent, and in some cases, increasing inequalities in educational attainment and poor student achievement. Educational attainment and achievement are also shown to be complementary to a large extent. Despite the methodological limitations, evidence consistently confirms that certain characteristics of schools and teachers are significantly related to both educational outcomes. This opens the door for public policy and provides multiple (potential) policies 'entrance points' for addressing the remaining challenges. Some measures have implications for public funding, its priorities and/or efficiency, and others are more closely related to the management of public institutions. Some of the main policy implications derived from the analytical findings are re-asserting or expanding priorities for public funding through expanding support for the Fundamental School Quality Level (FSQL), and supporting full day schooling and conditional cash transfers for vulnerable groups; improving spending efficiency through better targeted fee exemptions and the strengthened application of teacher standards; and improving the management of public sector schools through higher principals' management capacity, strengthened accountability of schools to their communities and better information.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Doing Business Economy Profile 2015 : Zambia(Washington, DC, 2014-10)This economy profile for Doing Business 2015 presents the 11 Doing Business indicators for Zambia. To allow for useful comparison, the profile also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. Doing Business 2015 is the 12th edition in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2015 Zambia ranks 111. A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Doing Business measures regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business known as indicators. Ten of these areas are included in this year's ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures labor market regulation, which is not included in this year's ranking. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2014 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period from January to December 2013).Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Taxes, Spending, and Equity: International Patterns and Lessons for Developing Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-17)Taxes and public spending underpin the basic administration of government and finance the human capital and infrastructure investments needed for economic growth. They can also have a significant and immediate impact on poverty and inequality. The question of how public finance can support longer-term growth objectives while promoting equity has become even more important in recent years, given the high fiscal deficits and debt levels most countries emerged with in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included the increasing cost of debt and the need to restart environmentally sustainable growth while helping households address the learning losses and other social scars caused by the pandemic. This paper examines the global evidence on which households pay which taxes and who benefits from what spending, and critically, the net effect on different households across the income distribution. The aim is to identify the patterns and lessons that emerge for designing progressive fiscal policies. A global dataset of 96 countries is assembled, spanning all regions of the world and all national income levels, grounded in the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) approach to fiscal incidence.Publication At Your Service?(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-09-15)Throughout history, industrialization has been synonymous with development. However, the trend of premature deindustrialization and the spread of automation technologies associated with Industry 4.0 has raised concerns that the development model based on export-led manufacturing seen in East Asia will be harder for hitherto less industrialized countries to replicate in the future. Can services-led development be an alternative? Contrary to conventional wisdom, the features of manufacturing that were considered uniquely conducive for productivity growth - such as international trade, scale economies, inter-sectoral linkages, and innovation - are increasingly shared by the services sector. But services are not monolithic. The twin gains of productivity growth and large-scale job creation for relatively low-skilled workers are less likely to come together in any given services subsector. The promise of services-led development in the future will be strengthened to the extent that technological change reduces the trade-off between productivity and jobs, and growth opportunities in services with potential for high productivity do not depend on a manufacturing base. Considering technological change and linkages between sectors while differentiating across types of services, this book assesses the scope of a services-driven development model and policy directions that maximize its potential.Publication Direct and Indirect Impacts of Transport Mobility on Access to Jobs: Evidence from South Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-12)Access to jobs is essential for economic growth. In Africa, unemployment rates are notably high. This paper reexamines the relationship between transport mobility and labor market outcomes, with a particular focus on the direct and indirect effects of transport connectivity. As predicted by theory, wages are influenced by the level of commuting deterrence. Generally, higher earnings are associated with longer commute times and/or higher commuting costs. Local accessibility is also important, especially for individuals with time constraints. Both direct and indirect impacts are found to be significant in South Africa, where job accessibility has been challenging since the end of apartheid. For the direct impact, the wage elasticity associated with commuting costs is significant. Returns on commute are particularly high for women. Local accessibility to socioeconomic facilities, such as shops and health services, is also found to have a significant impact, consistent with the concept of mobility of care. To enhance employment, therefore, it is crucial to connect people not only to job locations but also to various socioeconomic points of interest, such as markets and hospitals, in an integrated manner. This integration will enable individuals to spend more time working and commuting longer distances.