News

November 02, 2024
For Immediate Release

Sudan is experiencing the world’s worst education crisis, with approximately 19 million children—nearly half of the country’s young population—currently out of school. Due to protracted and escalating armed conflicts, particularly in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile, over 90% of Sudan’s nearly 28,000 schools are now closed or rendered inaccessible. This situation leaves a devastating gap in educational access, with a generation of children facing the bleak reality of lost potential, interrupted learning, and few pathways for future opportunity.

The recent armed conflicts have caused the forced displacement of more than 24 million people, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and stretching resources beyond their limits. Educational facilities have been ravaged, classrooms have been converted to shelters, and basic infrastructure that could support remote learning options is virtually non-existent. Many teachers have been displaced or left without the means to work, and families now struggle to prioritize education amidst overwhelming survival priority needs.

Beyond the immediate impact on individual children and families, Sudan’s education crisis poses long-term risks to the country’s human capital and economic stability. Without swift action to restore learning opportunities, Sudan faces the possibility of an entire generation growing up without foundational literacy, numeracy, or critical skills for employment, community leadership, and resilience. The impact on women and girls, who are at heightened risk of gender-based violence and early marriage due to prolonged school closures, is particularly alarming, as it further entrenches cycles of poverty and gender inequality.

Education in Crisis (EiC) is committed to ensuring that Sudanese children receive crisis-responsive educational support that meets both their immediate and long-term needs. Through partnerships with local organizations, local entities, and international allies, EiC is working to implement solutions that prioritize:

• Establishing secure spaces and using mobile classrooms to reach displaced children where they are, even in challenging conflict-affected areas.
• Providing accelerated learning for overage children who have missed years of schooling, and offering alternative pathways to reintegrate students into the education system.
• Equipping educators with the skills and resources they need to provide trauma-informed and inclusive education, and working with local communities to foster support and ownership over education initiatives.
• Advocating for increased funding and international support to rebuild and reimagine Sudan’s education system, focusing on resilience and adaptability to withstand ongoing disruptions.

To achieve these goals, coordinated global and regional support is urgently needed. This crisis represents not only an educational emergency but a critical juncture in Sudan’s development path. Investing in education amid the crisis is a necessary step to prevent the long-term erosion of Sudan’s human capital and to build a future where every child has the opportunity to learn, grow, and contribute to rebuilding their nation.

Together, we must act swiftly and decisively to bridge the growing education gap and protect the futures of Sudan’s children. Every moment lost is a setback for Sudan’s next generation, and every effort to support education is a lifeline toward hope, resilience, and recovery.

For further information or to support our efforts, please contact:
Email: media@eduincrisis.org
For irregularities: report@eduincrisis.org
Education in Crisis
Tel: +256 703 287698

December 2023

Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity is a Pan-African movement of over 30,000 individual members and 800 organizations working across the continent and diaspora to push governments, businesses, and established national and global NGOs to focus on the issues Africans deem critical. The organization provides a space for progressive African civil society leaders and groups engaged in various civic struggles to convene, connect, collaborate, share knowledge, and build solidarity among people and across issues.

“Being awarded for your work that is promoting unity, justice, peace and dignity, is not just about the awards but also a recognition of your credibility and transformation of Africans. It is important to ensure that your work reflects the values of an African continent we all desire such that the members of Africans Rising amplify your voice.”

Founded in August 2019, Education in Crisis (EIC) is a Non-Governmental Organization with head office located in Arusha, Tanzania. The youth-led organisation works strategically to invest in quality education by bringing together monthly resources to support the African child and youth impacted by poverty, conflicts, illiteracy etc. by empowering them with education as a sustainable tool. They work on providing access to quality education, gender equality, climate education, mental health, psychosocial support, and teacher development.

Being named the second runner-up in the Movement of the Year category in the 2022 Africans Rising Activism Awards means a recognition of our work in the communities in which we operate and a new partnership with Africans Rising Movement, which is an important achievement. It has given us credibility and encouragement to keep mobilising and doing more to transform the lives of millions on the continent whose education is in crisis by promoting inclusive, equitable, quality education for all.

We work with local grassroot communities, activists and supporters of the right to education, teachers, professionals, students, community leaders, civil society organisations, policy makers, educationists, private sector and businesses, and schools and institutions with an aim to enhance free and quality education for all groups, including those with disabilities and girls.

For more information, please contact:

Okwalinga David

Email: okwalinga@eduincrisis.org

Mobile: +256 703 287698

26 February 2024

Education is a human right for all children, always and everywhere – girls, children with disabilities, children from rural or poor communities or those experiencing emergency or crisis situations.

During their recent Summit, the African Union recently convened Heads of State to launch their Year of Education 2024 under the theme “Educate an African fit for the 21st Century: Building resilient education systems for increased access to inclusive, lifelong, quality, and relevant learning in Africa”.

The more innovative we are in our thinking and practices, the more progress in transforming the education systems in Africa fit for the 21st century. Investments must be early (so more to pre and primary than to tertiary education. We need to go beyond our traditional thinking of schools as buildings but schools as places, any place where learning take place. Why waiting for schools to be built to catch up with the fast-growing population if there are community centres, churches, and mosques.

On behalf of EIC, Okwalinga David, M&E Manager said, “Education is the right of every child and the foundation for children’s well-being, happiness, growth, and lifelong learning. It is an enormous positive step that the AU has translated the above and called for a year of education in 2024. This gives us a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to use the momentum to the fullest and develop the human capital for the future of the continent.”

Children enrolled in at least one year of pre-primary education are more likely to develop the critical skills they need to succeed in school and less likely to repeat grades or drop out. As adults, they contribute to peaceful societies and prosperous economies. Evidence of the ways in which pre-primary education advances development exists around the world. Completion rates in Africa between 2000 and 2022 went from 52 to 69 percent in primary, 35 to 50 percent in lower secondary and 23 to 33 percent in upper secondary education. This is impressive: today more children are in school than ever before, and completion rates have increased at all levels.

In many African countries, it is more than the data when talking about those children who start their pre-primary education from their early childhood. Children from poor families are the least likely to attend early childhood education programmes. For children who do have access, poorly trained educators, overcrowded and unstimulating environments, and unsuitable curricula diminish the quality of their experiences, thus their education in crisis.

Efforts to scale up access to pre-primary education should not come at the expense of quality. Quality is the sum of many parts, including teachers, families, communities, resources, and curricula. Without adequate safeguards for quality, expansion efforts can intensify education inequities. It is only by investing in quality as education systems grow – not after – that governments can expand access and maintain quality.

To improve literacy and numeracy in the early years, equipping children, every girl and boy, with solid foundational and socio-emotional skills, which, in the long run, will help reverse performance gaps and better position children to obtain higher-level knowledge and competencies in later years, including digital skills and climate change knowledge is crucial. 

This must start with ensuring that teachers and relevant support personal are adequately trained to support quality learning for every child. Improving literacy and numeracy starts with a solid early learning. Every child must have access to early childhood education.

EIC works to give every child a fair start in education. We support pre-primary education by:

• Building political commitment to quality pre-primary education through evidence generation, advocacy, and communication
• Strengthening policies and advocating for increased public financing for pre-primary education
• Bolstering national capacity to plan and implement quality pre-primary education at scale while enhancing the quality of pre-primary programmes by supporting the development of quality standards, curricular frameworks, teacher training packages and more.
• Collecting data and generating evidence for innovative approaches that deliver quality pre-primary education for vulnerable children.
• Delivering conflict-sensitive early childhood education and psychosocial support to young children and their families in humanitarian situations is critical.

For children who do have access, poorly trained educators, overcrowded and unstimulating environments, and unsuitable curricula diminish the quality of their experiences, thus their education in crisis. To join make foundational learning possible, join our One Million Africans Campaign by committing just $1.

For more information, please contact:

Okwalinga David

Email: okwalinga@eduincrisis.org

Mobile: +256 703 287698