A/HRC/40/CRP.1 flexible learning through mobile schools, local teachers who are present in the cattle camps and a truncated curriculum to fast-track learning.793 As of 2017, 1,311 (332 female, 979 male) students (children, youth and adults) were taking part in lessons in 10 cattle camps and one learning centre. A new curriculum designed for pastoralists was also being implemented by 37 (35 male and 2 female) teachers/community facilitators. 794 Nonetheless, there is a need for the programme to be expanded.795 While it is reasonable to expect that population displacement resulting from the conflict results in significantly lower levels of access to education, given the dire education situation facing students in South Sudan this is not universally the case. Indeed, although IDPs and refugees have worse educational outcomes than urban children, they fare better than rural children in South Sudan.796 IDP children have similar rates of primary school attendance to urban children; however, at the secondary school level they have significantly lower levels of attendance (eight percent attendance rate among IDPs as compared to 22 percent attendance rate for urban children).797 As is the case with non-displaced children in South Sudan, displaced girls have significantly lower levels of access to education than do boys.798 South Sudanese refugee children have a right to primary and secondary education in all the surrounding countries hosting refugees; however, enrolment remains low with 59 percent at the primary level and just 11 percent at the secondary level. As is the case in South Sudan, there is a noticeable gender disparity.799 Further barriers to education for refugee children include language barriers, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic where the language of instruction is French.800 The Commission heard similar concerns expressed in Sudan, where the language of instruction is Arabic, and in Kenya where some education is in Swahili, languages many of the children do not speak.801 Despite these barriers to access, refugee children in Kenya and Sudan have participated in national examinations.802 Indeed, refugees with whom the Commission spoke raised access to education (as well as risk of recruitment) as one of their primary concerns which need to be addressed before returning to South Sudan. 803 Despite these bleak figures on access to education in South Sudan, since independence, there has been an upward trajectory in primary and secondary enrolment in South Sudan. In primary schools, there was a dip in enrolment between 2013 and 2015 with the outbreak in the conflict; however, by 2017 enrolment had recovered and reached a new high. Likewise, since 2012, the number of students sitting the South Sudan secondary examinations has more than quadrupled.804 This, coupled with the increase in education funding in the 2018/2019 budget,805 gives reason for hope although there is a long way to go to get all South Sudanese children into school. d) Quality of Education Even where children have access to and are able to attend schools, the resources available to them are limited. Global Initiative on Out of School Children, “South Sudan Country Study”, May 2018. UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa, Annual Report 2017. 795 Radio Tamazuj, “Terekeka pastoralists demand mobile schools”, 4 January 2019. 796 World Bank, “Impact of Conflict and Shocks on Poverty: South Sudan Poverty Assessment 2017”, May 2018. 797 World Bank, “Impact of Conflict and Shocks on Poverty: South Sudan Poverty Assessment 2017”, May 2018. 798 World Bank, “Impact of Conflict and Shocks on Poverty: South Sudan Poverty Assessment 2017”, May 2018. 799 UNHCR, South Sudan Regional RRP 2018 Mid-Year Report, June 2018. The percentage of children in school varies by host country with the lowest number of primary students enrolled in Sudan (42%) and the highest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (76%) and at secondary level: the lowest percent in Kenya (5%) and the highest in Uganda (12%). Similar concerns were raised in respect of South Sudanese refugees in Darfur. Confidential Meeting, Nyala, Sudan, 26 August 2018. See also Confidential Meeting, Kiryandongo, 17 December 2018 800 UNHCR, South Sudan Regional RRP 2018 Mid-Year Report, June 2018. 801 Confidential Meeting, Nyala, Sudan, 26 August 2018; Focus group meeting with unaccompanied and separated children in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya, 27 August 2018. 802 UNHCR, South Sudan Regional RRP 2018 Mid-Year Report, June 2018. 803 E.g. focus group meeting with refugees in El Daein, Sudan, 27 August 2018. 804 Global Initiative on Out of School Children, South Sudan Country Study, May 2018. 805 See above para. 540. 793 794 108