Building a Better Future : Education for an independent South Sudan

Education has a vital role to play in building a better future for South Sudan. The government has set the goal of achieving universal primary education and doubling the secondary school population by 2015 and is putting in place plans to improve quality. Successful construction of an education system that extends opportunity for quality education to all would transform the lives of South Sudan’s people. The 2011 UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report provides a detailed analysis of the experience of several low income countries emerging from conflict, which demonstrates that rapid progress in education is possible. In the case of South Sudan, failure to deliver an early peace premium in education as a first step towards the construction of a national system that provides good quality learning opportunities for all will have profoundly damaging consequences for employment, poverty reduction and prospects for building a country that offers shared prosperity, democracy and security for all of its citizens.