Country Spotlight: Sudan Achievements 2021

2021 Achievements | Leveraging robust needs assessment and analysis to understand and break barriers to education in Sudan

As Sudan faces a deep economic crisis, food scarcity and insecurity, many children are prevented from attending school. Early 2021, the Education Cluster estimated that 2.9 million people were in need of humanitarian education assistance¹, especially nomads and refugees, mostly from South Sudan. Three out of four nomad children were already out of school before the COVID-19 induced school closures which only worsened their access to education. An estimated 70% of refugees live outside of camps, so refugee children live far from education services, and often do not speak the local language of instruction. Many schools lack WASH facilities or were damaged by conflict, and the pandemic exacerbated the gap in school access for the most vulnerable, who were often not able to access remote learning during school closures. High pupil to classroom ratios (up to 80 learners per classroom in some areas) and scarcity of textbooks are some of the other barriers to access to education for children in Sudan. Many children drop out – girls often get drafted in early marriage and pregnancy, while boys start working to support their families – making the engagement of adolescents in education one of the main challenges for the Sudan Education Cluster.  

Because there was no history of conducting a large scale EiE assessment in Sudan, and the Education Cluster needed data and evidence to inform both its response and the upcoming ECW funded Multi-Year Resilience Programme, the Cluster benefited from the remote deployment of three GEC specialists in the areas of Needs Assessment, Information Management and Child Participation. They supported the Education Cluster team to design a Joint Education Needs Assessment (JENA), trained the team and partners on the JENA methodology, and supported the implementation of the assessment. This resulted in the first JENA ever conducted in Sudan, with 602 schools, 525 caregivers and 408 children surveyed. The Sudan Education Cluster plans to significantly scale this up in a new JENA in 2023, and the published report served as a foundation to the MYRP report and was endorsed by the Federal Ministry of Education. Finally, the GEC provided targeted support on sampling methodology, design of tools, data management, ensuring child safeguarding and protection, and how to integrate child participation in to the ECW Multi-Year Resilience Programme to support access to quality life-sustaining education programmes for displaced, conflict-affected, and otherwise vulnerable children in Sudan.