المالحة

EducationinSudan is free andcompulsory for children aged 6to 13 years. Primaryeducationconsists of eight years,followed by three years ofsecondaryeducation. Theformer educational ladder 6 +3 + 3 was changedin 1990.The primary language at alllevels is Arabic. Schools areconcentratedin urban areas;manyin the South and Westhave been damaged ordestroyed by years of civilwar.In 2001 the World Bankestimated that primaryenrollment was 46 percent ofeligible pupils and 21 percentof secondary students.Enrollment varies widely, fallingbelow 20 percentin someprovinces.Sudan has 19universities; instruction isprimarilyin Arabic.Education atthe secondary and universitylevels has been seriouslyhampered by the requirementthat most males performmilitary service beforecompleting theireducation.According to World Bankestimates for 2002, the literacyratein adults aged 15 years andolder was 60 percent.In 2000the comparable figure wasalmost 58 percent (69 percentfor males, 46 percent forfemales); youth illiteracy (ages15–24) was estimated at 23percent.The public and privateeducationsystems inherited by thegovernment after independencewere designed more to providecivil servants and professionalsto serve the colonialadministration than to educatethe Sudanese. Moreover, thedistribution of facilities, staff,and enrollment was biasedinfavor of the needs of theadministration and a Westerncurriculum. Schools tended tobe clusteredin the vicinity ofKhartoum and to a lesserextentin other urban areas,although the population waspredominantly rural. Thisconcentration was found at alllevels but was most markedfor thosein situations beyondthe four-year primary schoolswhere instruction wasin thevernacular. The north sufferedfrom shortages of teachers andbuildings, buteducationin thesouth was even moreinadequate. During thecondominium,educationin thesouth was left largely to themission schools, where thelevel of instruction proved sopoor that as early as the mid-1930s the government imposedprovincialeducation supervisorsupon the missionariesin returnfor the government subsidiesthat they sorely needed. Thecivil war and the ejection of allforeign missionariesin February1964 further diminishededucation opportunities forsouthern Sudanese.Since World War II the demandforeducation had exceededSudan'seducation resources. Atindependencein 1956,educationaccounted for only 15.5percent of the Sudanesebudget, or £Sd45, to support1,778 primary schools(enrollment 208,688), 108intermediate schools (enrollment14,632), and 49 governmentsecondary schools (enrollment5,423). Highereducation waslimited to the University ofKhartoum, except for less than1,000 students sent abroad bywealthy parents or ongovernment scholarships. Theadult literacy ratein 1956 was22.9 percent, and, despite theefforts of successivegovernments, by 1990 it hadrisen only to about 30 percentin the face of a rapidlyexpanding population.The philosophy and curriculumbeyond primary schoolfollowed the British educationaltradition. Although all studentslearned Arabic and Englishinsecondary and intermediateschools, the language ofinstruction at the University ofKhartoum was English.Moreover, the increasingdemand for intermediate,secondary, and highereducationcould not be met by Sudaneseteachers alone, at least not bythe better educated onesgraduated from the eliteteacher-training college at Bakhtar Ruda. As a result,educationinSudan continued to dependupon expensive foreignteachers.When the Nimeiri-ledgovernment took powerin 1969,it considered theeducationsystem inadequate for theneeds of social and economicdevelopment. Accordingly, anextensive reorganization wasproposed, which wouldeventually make the new six-year elementaryeducationprogram compulsory and wouldpay much more attention totechnical and vocationaleducation at all levels.Previously, primary andintermediate schools had beenpreludes to secondary training,and secondary schoolsprepared students for theuniversity. The systemproduced some well- tr