The Civil War and Educational Continuity in Southern Sudan (1983-2005)

This study contributes to the larger discourse on education in armed conflict, drawing from the experience of southern Sudan during the Civil War (1983-2005). Despite the negative narrative and many challenges, education did not come to a standstill for the entire period of the war. This study probes into this phenomenon with a view to arriving at implications for the current South Sudan education system, still trapped in conflict.

The study interacted with teachers from South Sudan who served in the education system during the civil war, in order to listen to their stories about the nature of the challenges they experienced and how they negotiated those challenges. The foundation for the study is provided by the worldview of resilience, which suggests that even in times of adversity such as conflict, institutions have the ability to resist. The study problematizes the state model of educational continuity informed largely by prevailing policy discourses on perceived common good – often held back by the challenges of the war and misplaced state priorities. The study also problematizes the Western theoretical basis of educational continuity in emergency informed largely by humanitarian technical rationalist and reductionist inclination that essentially favour foreign humanitarian agencies – with a wide disconnect with the local way of life of the people.

The study draws on data generated from field work conducted with 54 teachers from South Sudan between 2019 and 2022. A wide range of semi-structured questions were used to elicit information from the interview participants on their personal experiences of the war and how they navigated survival and ensured educational continuity in the middle of the catastrophic events of the war. The success of the education system during the war was constructed around the notion of community and indigenization – communitarianism – as opposed to government or other powerful education actors such as NGOs. While delivering education during the war, the teachers were not conditioned by any normative framework, policies, international agendas, initiatives or programmes; they used different approaches to engage, adapt and adopt drawing significantly from their local context, values, norms, traditions, customs, histories, cultures and beliefs as well as their personal ontology and capabilities.

The strongest support to the schools came from the recognition by the local communities, of their own internal resources and the galvanisation of these resources for their own benefit and the good of the schools. Among the sociocultural structures upon which the teachers relied were the family, community, peer groups, marriage networks and religion – well-rooted structures and institutions of society that have been strongly built and survived for years. So much so, education operated as a communal project embodying the participation and contribution of every member.

The study calls for a more holistic, integrated, and localised responses to educational continuity and the adoption of educational methodologies that embrace the communitarian approach to provide structure, stability and continuity of education in similar contexts. This ought to work hand in hand with state and international frameworks to guide the process of educational resilience. This study brings a local and contextual perspective into the discourse on educational continuity in Emergency in particular the concept of communitarianism, in educational continuity within a polarized, multi-layered, discourse. By introducing this perspective, the study provides an alternative understanding of educational continuity in armed conflict and offers a humble contribution. Further research should test the application of this approach and other methods contextually adopted in promoting educational continuity in armed conflict.