THOUSANDS of Sudanese teenagers finally sat for their high school exams this week after multiple delays during more than two years of conflict but many more remain out of school.
Some 210,000 pupils registered to sit the exams in nearly 2,000 centres, 50 of them in neighbouring countries like Chad and Egypt, which have taken in many of Sudan’s four million refugees, the education ministry of the army-backed government said.
Outside a school in the Egyptian capital Cairo, dozens of Sudanese students pored over revision notes under the blazing sun as their parents looked on anxiously.
“God help them, the children were desperate, they thought their future was destroyed,” mother of four Aisha Osman told AFP after seeing off her daughter.
“It’s all we parents have been able to think about for two years,” she said.
The war between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devastated Sudan’s education system.
The United Nations has warned repeatedly that the conflict risks turning Sudan’s 19 million school-age children into a lost generation, deprived of any formal education.
More than seven million children have been displaced, many multiple times, as their families have fled the shifting front lines.
Classes at many schools have been suspended as their buildings have been turned into makeshift shelters.
“Many children will not have access to the exams at all, despite their efforts in studying under extremely challenging circumstances,” children’s rights network Plan International warned last month.
This week’s exams were held in army-controlled areas of western, northern and central Sudan, including Khartoum, Al-Jazira, Sennar and Port Sudan.
