Social and Emotional Learning components to advance the well-being of girls in South Sudan

• In Event: Roundtable Session 5
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Enhancing Equity in Education by Better Aligning with the Women Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda and Framework Case studies from East and West Africa

Proposal

Can the WPS agenda and framework make a difference? Unfortunately, like many signed or supported resolutions often left aside, serves as an effort agreed to without serious implementation at the country-level. South Sudan, a prime country with one of the highest rates of GBV against women and girls is host to extreme incidents of violence and war that have caused high levels of continued displacement of South Sudanese girls, boys and youth both within and outside the geographic boundaries of the world’s newest nation. Unfortunately, these forced displacements have worsened the country’s already struggling education system. In 2015, for example, South Sudan reported an illiteracy rate of 84 percent for females and 73 percent for males. The 2016 clashes in Juba, South Sudan’s capital and largest city, left close to one-third of the country’s primary school learning spaces partially or completely destroyed. Data collected and analyzed in 2018 from South Sudan’s Education Management Information System (EMIS) revealed a marked increase in the student dropout rate, which was compounded by a decline in enrollment (UNESCO 2018). However, the disruption of the education system is only one of the consequences the war and violence have had for South Sudan’s youth population, particularly for young girls.
Wellbeing factors have been found, through a recently developed tool in the conflict-ridden context to look slightly different in the South Sudanese context than what we find in the conflict literature. Social interactions and larger processes of rights such as those enshrined in the WPS relate to protections and create an important entry point for discussion of the main goals of the WPS at the local level and/or in schools. While coping skills can influence the way students see themselves relating to others, it also suggests the importance of social connections in South Sudanese students’ conceptions of their wellbeing. And PSS and the behaviors it supports are taught in the communal context of schools and child-friendly spaces. Whereby, sites of learning are prime locations for teaching values to girls and boys in conflict settings beyond school subjects, including practical knowledge of social norms (Winthrop 2011).
Studies showed a major shift seen is greater specificity in resilience thus, amplifying the importance of agency for girls in and beyond education. With supporting WPS resolution and subsequent national policy change potential a shift could occur in the lives of women and girls. Recent studies show that the way wellbeing is understood by students in South Sudan is closely related to the context of where their skills are built and practiced, and with whom they are practicing these skills and knowledge - thus, key to an equity shift in education over that long term and a place to infuse new goals adhered to by WPS.

Author

• Wendy Wheaton, USAID