Off the wire
• Feature: Sri Lanka mourns as hopes fade to find landslide survivors  • Feature: Kenyan slum youth eye jobs in Chinese firms to transform their lives  • 1st LD: EgyptAir: wreckage of missing airplane found near Greek island  • Benin to create heritage promotion agency to boost tourism  • Urgent: EgyptAir: wreckage of missing airplane found near Greek island  • LME base metals decrease on Thursday  • FLASH: EGYPTAIR: FOREIGN MINISTRY CONFIRMS FINDING WRCKAGE OF MISSING AIRPLANE NEAR GREEK ISLAND  • EU hails Japan lifting 15-year ban on Italian beef imports  • India's ruling party widens influence after winning in northeast state  • Ghana records sharp drop in foreign investments in Q1: report  
You are here: 　 Home

South Sudan replaces foreign curricula with own one

Xinhua, May 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

South Sudan on Thursday announced the phasing out of foreign curricula in schools in the country, replacing them with its own national curriculum.

Minister for General Education and Instruction, Deng Deng Hoc, told the media in the capital Juba that the new curriculum had been well researched and focused on "the situation in the country".

He said the curricula of Uganda, Kenya and Sudan, once or still used in the country, had been or would be phased out.

"It is only the national curriculum of South Sudan that is supposed to be taught in the whole country. All other foreign curricula will need to be phased out," he said.

South Sudan, since it won independence from Sudan in 2011, has used curricula of Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia in schools.

Deng added that international schools were exempted from this change, which would affect all public and private schools.

"Earlier on September 15, 2014, the ministry sent out a circular following the decision of the National Examination Council to inform all state ministries of education of the last conduct of Sudan certificate examinations in the academic year 2015," he revealed.

However, there have been elements opposed to the move with some school students going on strike to be allowed to continue sitting for the exams based on the foreign curricula, the minister disclosed.

He urged the schools to follow the education system recognized by the government.

Education in South Sudan has been harmed by more than two years of civil conflict that damaged schools and caused the exodus of teachers and students, with Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity states being most affected.

South Sudan's former rebel leader, Riek Machar, returned to the capital Juba and was reconciled with President Salva Kiir late last month, under a deal signed by them last August under UN pressure.

On the day of his return, Machar took up his old post as first vice president. A transitional government of national unity led by Kiir was formed days later. Endit