More than half of South Sudan’s children do not attend school, the highest proportion in any country, the United Nations (UN) children’s agency has revealed.
The country has been rocked by a wave of violence for the past two years, although a peace deal was signed in August last year.
Niger comes in second with a close 47% of the children unable to attend school, followed by Sudan (41%) and Afghanistan (40%).
Worldwide, around 24 million children of the more than 109 million living in nations that are dodged by conflict are not in school, Unicef said.
Even before the start of the conflict in South Sudan, 1.4 million children were already missing class, according to Unicef.
Since the war broke out, more than 800 schools have been demolished and more than 400,000 children forced out of school, the agency said.
Only one in 10 South Sudanese children who join school complete primary education amid shortage of facilities and trained teachers, said Phuong T Nguyen, Unicef’s chief of education for South Sudan.
“There is a very, very low budget from the government to the education sector,” she said. “It is not holding steady and we see a decline.”
Enrolment went up from under 30% after South Sudan became independent in 2011, but the war and a lack of school buildings and qualified teachers have slowed the growth, according to a South Sudanese official, the AP news agency reports.
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