public spending has increased by about 4 percentage points to 12 percent, and as

a share of GDP it has more than doubled to 2.7 percent. However, these are still
low levels. With the decentralization since the 2005 CPA, education spending
has increased at the state level and, in 2009, 83 percent of public education
spending took place at state level. Teacher training has fallen behind; the result
has been the deterioration in the quality of teachers, with an estimated 50
percent of primary school teachers unqualified. While pre-schools and basic
schools have student-teacher ratios of around 33, there is a very wide variation
among states. The Darfur states have high student teacher ratios, with West
Darfur at 65.7, nearly double the national average. Overcrowded classrooms
and untrained teachers make for poor education. The dearth of trained teachers
was aggravated by significant waves of brain drain to Gulf countries.

115. Household out-of-pocket payments cover a large share of school running

costs, in particular for basic education, implying that basic education is not
always free in practice. Moreover, education accounts for a larger share of
consumption for poor rural households than non-poor rural households with
implications for equity in access to education.

116. Education opportunities for vulnerable groups, nomads and IDPs remain a
significant challenge due to their non-sedentary lifestyle. Northern Sudan is host
to 4.3 million IDPs located in the three Darfur states and Khartoum state,
equivalent to nearly 14 percent of the total population.i Nomads account for
about 9.1 percent of the total population in Northern Sudan. In 2008/09, 8.7
percent of basic schools in northern Sudan were nomadic and 1.6 percent was
IDP schools (these schools are typically much larger than nomadic schools).

Strategy and Priorities for Basic Education

117. The main education priorities are the following with special focus on those
areas that were particularly affected by civil strife, drought and/or
desertification (lagging regions).

• Bridging the gap between States in enrolment and thereby raising the
average enrolment and increasing the completion rate in primary school
from 57 percent in 2009 to 70 percent in 2011, with further improvements
in subsequent years;

• Bridging the enrolment gap between boys and girls that persist in some
states so as to eliminate gender disparities in access to education at the
basic level and achieve gender equality;
 • Improving the literacy rate of those between ages 15-24 through
programmes targeting school dropouts especially those between 9 and 14
years of age; and

• The preparation of a medium sector education sector strategy to bring

focus to these priorities as well as on the quality of education, and help to
develop concrete actions and targets.

118. The above priorities will be implemented with the concentration of the
expansion of primary education in disadvantaged States. This programme would
entail the building of an estimated 2519 classrooms, training of 14000 teachers
and improving the school environment by providing every child and teacher
with educational aids books as well as school furniture. In recognition of the
large size of the country and the effect this has on attendance, the programme
calls for the establishment of boarding schools for pupils from distant areas
within each State. In
i
UNHCR 2010; The Joint Assessment Mission (2005).