One day, an angry parent came to the primary school that we started at Mazzolari Teachers Training College in South Sudan. He wanted to withdraw his daughter from our school after having been brought there by her mother. “Education spoils girls,” he said. This is the mentality that we're up against.  

South Sudan has the lowest literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa (27%), and girls suffer the most. More than 70% of its population above the age of 15 is illiterate, and majority of them are women, according to UNESCO.  

Cultural norms that push early marriage present a challenge, especially in the greater Bahr el Ghazal region, among ethnic groups who are pastoralists. Women and girls are valued in terms of how much bride price (number of cows) they can fetch for their families.  

Poverty and a lack of public investment in education hinder education in general. South Sudan gained independence in 2011; it remains politically and economically unstable and has not established a proper education system. The church helps fill the gap by offering education, especially to the poor and marginalized.  

In 2014, the Catholic Diocese of Rumbek invited the Jesuits of Eastern Africa Province to establish a teacher training college in Cueibet county. They would run a two-year pre-service program, with trainees who have completed secondary school. The college was called Mazzolari Teachers Training College (MTTC), after the late Bishop Cesare Mazzolari, who proposed its creation.  

But MTTC couldn't get students qualified enough to be trained as teachers; their educational foundation was weak. A proposal was made to train teachers in primary schools who had no professional certificate. They were not qualified either.  

The Jesuits decided to start a primary and secondary school to provide quality education for boys and girls, and in time, teachers could be raised from their ranks. MTTC currently has 25 students in the two-year pre-service program (15 female), and 65 in the in-service program (25 female). Fifty-nine students have graduated from the pre-service program, and 14 work as teachers and headmasters.  

Encouraging parents to educate their children, especially girls, remains an uphill battle. By the time the girls are 14, their families want to see them married off. Parents often neglect to pay their tuition or provide them with hygiene supplies. Students have approached teachers with requests for sanitary pads so they could go to school during their menstrual period. This neglect is often designed to force girls to drop out of school.  Families also rely on girls to fetch firewood and water, to cook, and babysit their siblings, leaving them no time to study.  This leads to poor performance and creates an excuse to remove them from school.  

When school fees go unpaid, it becomes difficult to pay teachers and to feed the students. The school is forced to end classes earlier than usual.  

The Jesuits and laypeople who work with us encourage girls to stay focused and rise above their challenges. We do so through homilies, lectures in classrooms, seminars, and even one-on-one exchanges. 

The support that we receive from Canadian Jesuits International and other members of the Xavier Network is therefore crucial.