Aid needed for South Darfur camp schools

After an assessment of nine schools at the camps for the displaced in South Darfur’s Nyala and Bielel localities, the state Ministry of Education and Unicef concluded that 506 classrooms need rehabilitation.

The schools are also short of teacher kits, student kits, and textbooks, according to the assessment conducted between June and the first week of August 2015.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan reported in its bulletin this week that there 87 schools and 873 classrooms in the nine camps, which provide education to 97,163 children.

This means an average class size of 93 students per classroom, which is more than double the minimum standard of 40 students per classroom set by the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies. As this number varies from camp to camp, many classrooms accommodate far more than the average and most are forced to operate in two shifts to meet all of the students’ needs.

Of the 1,069 teachers working at the schools, 467 are volunteers.

There are a total of 564 latrines available at the schools of which 430 are permanent structures and 134 temporary. OCHA reported. According to Sphere Minimum Standards, however, the 87 schools require a total of 1,700 latrines.