Assessing the impact of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) interventions in the education sector; case study: Juba County Central Equatoria state, South Sudan

Abstract

Human resource is one important asset for every country and the only way a country can have quality human resource is by ensuring that its education sector is well developed and provides opportunity for every child to be able to develop his/her potentials. This study was based on assessing the impact of UNICEF’s intervention in education sector. The objectives of the study were to determine (1) the change brought about in the education sector as a result of the development of the General Education Act which UNICEF supported the ministry of education develop, (2) the change brought about as a result of the capacity building programs of UNICEF and (3) the challenges facing the education sector in Juba County. A case study of Juba County was chosen because of its strategic location as the capital with heavy presence of government organs at all levels, donors, UN agencies and International NGOs. The sample size for the study was 75 respondents and composed of directors, head teachers, Community members, students, UNICEF staff and staff from other NGOs in the education sector. Data collection involved the use of both primary and secondary methods and instruments such as questionnaires, interviews, focused group discussions and documentary review were used. Data is largely analyzed qualitatively according to the study objectives and presented in themes while quantifiable data obtained from the field is statistical represented using tables, percentages and figures. The key findings revealed that policy frame works can help in improving the education sector but the challenge remains that most policies developed remain on paper and are not implemented due to in sufficient funds provided by government, weak institutions and lack of political support towards policies such as the General Education Act. In the area of capacity building, the findings xiii also reveal that a good number of teachers and other ministry staff are not trained and this has impacted negatively on the quality of education in the whole country because performance continue to decline, enrollment rates are still low, retention is poor and there is high dropout rate. Capacity building is very important for improvement of the sector and government should take it as a priority. It was clear that schools with reasonable number of trained teachers performed better and are managed better than those mostly run by untrained teachers. Therefore both government and donors need to take seriously the issue of capacity building in order to improve on the sector. Whereas there is progress being made in improving the education sector, there is still a mismatch between what the governments considers a priority when it comes to resource allocation to the different ministries. Security is the priority of the government now and it takes up to 46% of the national budget while education though a basic service is allocated only 4% of the national budget. Unless this mismatch in priority by donors and government gets corrected, there is going to be very minimal gains made in education sector.