School dropouts

Photo credit: Alrakoba.net/

The Ministry of Education admitted that the dropout rate in primary schools poses a real threat and requires concerted efforts, pointing out that the states of Kassala, Gedaref, Red Sea, Blue Nile and South Kordofan are ranked as among the worst.

The ministry revealed that the dropout rate has reached as high as 46%.

In a workshop on stability programs for students in the five states, funded by the European Union at a cost of 12 million euro, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education, Mohammed Ahmed Humaida, urged state education ministries to assist with the project, describing it as an important factor to the stability of students, while calling their presence outside schools a grave threat.

Humaida called on the five states to cooperate with the partners, stressing on spending the allocated funds within the scope of the project.

For his part, the European Union representative in Sudan named economic reasons as the major factor behind the 46% dropout rate, pointing out that many children leave school to work and support their families.

 The EU representative announced specialized studies to be conducted to find out the real reasons behind the phenomenon and methods for dealing with each of them.

We join hands with the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and we hope that the concerned parties will positively respond to his call in order to provide the appropriate school and education environment, as well as follow-up of educational services provided in schools in all states, taking into account that it is equally important to offer students, whose education was interrupted, a clear and accessible path to return to school and succeed in life.

Such rates and statistics of school drop-outs are truly very scary, and demand that concerned parties, including education ministries, schools, communities, and families take strong action to retain students.

 The problem is that the issue is linked to the general situation in the country, and consequently the current crisis is too wide-scale to be resolved by these limited-impact measures.

What is required now is to reconsider every aspect of the political, economic and security policy in order to trigger real change to face this explosive situation shaking the ground on which we stand.