The national minister of general education and instruction warned that South Sudan is on the verge of losing quality education as the public schools are left to volunteers to teach children across the country.
Addressing South Sudan the 5th governor’s forum in Juba on Friday, Hon. Awut Deng said action is needed to save education quality because qualified teachers have left the profession due to poor motivation.
She said the presidency should provide a directive for consistent services to pay salaries on time and motivate teachers to ensure schools do not collapse.
“Unless we improve the salaries of our teachers and the condition of services, we will not be able to get quality teachers,” said Hon. Awut.
She added that volunteers teachers are working on free will and can decide any time to teach, which she said has put government schools at a low standard in the states.
Hon. Awut emphasis that there is a need for South Sudan to invest in education bringing back the real teachers who are supposed to give quality education to children and pay them better.
She said there must be a high bar to achieve better education by making sure primary teachers have a diploma, certified certificate, or a university graduate.
She reiterated to the leadership, especially the presidency, to look into this seriously and help save education from collapsing.
She also said South Sudan would start using its own primary four and eight curriculums this year. Adding that at the same time, the rest of the classes will continue with the old syllabus until the new one is completed.
The 5th governor forum held in Juba, which was supposed to end on Friday, is adjourned to Saturday to finalize the resolutions.