This follows an initially compressed 2025–2026 school year in Khartoum, which lasted only from late August to late January. That schedule was set by the Education Ministry to align Khartoum with other states, such as White Nile State—home to the Eisa Mahanna School for children with disabilities—where the academic year continued until mid-March.
For the pupils of Elrayan Primary and Intermediate School, this measure is desperately needed. Master Jirjis, the school’s manager, said back in November that it seemed as though most of the children had never been to school at all. “They have forgotten so much over the past two years that we now have to do everything we can to prepare them for the exams at the end of January”, he said in a telephone conversation.
Study camps have been organised for pupils in their final year. The state exams for Year 6 primary school pupils took place in mid-February. Those for Year 3 secondary school pupils start on 28 March.
Master Jirjis arranged for the final-year students to be registered with the Ministry of Education. “That was a bit more complicated than in previous years. This time, we also had a number of pupils who did not have a birth certificate and therefore no national ID number, which is required for registration. So, we had to sort that out first”, he explained. “Because we were quite late with the payments, there was hardly any space or us at the nearest final exam centres. It meant the pupils would have had to travel by bus to a distant exam centre every day, which is far too expensive for them. After days of insisting on a place closer by, we managed to sort it out in the end.”
Remedial teaching
The school’s teachers know the pupils well and do their utmost to help them catch up on their studies. Most parents come from the Nuba Mountains, a region in southern Sudan, and most of them are day labourers with little or no formal education. At home, the children often speak their own language and broken Sudanese Arabic. The curriculum in the schoolbooks is presented in Standard Arabic, so Nubian children (and to a certain extent Darfurian children as well) start off at a disadvantage.
The last time I (Rianne) was in Sudan was in late 2022. At that time, I also visited the three schools supported by the East Africa Education Foundation. In the November 2022 newsletter (attached here), Miss Rajaa spoke about her teaching methods for the upper years at Elrayan Primary School. “The children [..] were pretty weak at the beginning of the school year, especially those who came from state schools”, she explained. “Reading and writing were very poor. I worked hard on this. We read a lot, especially stories. Sometimes I gave extra lessons in the afternoons to brush up their knowledge. Most of them were so eager that I was happy to do it.”
In December 2022, I again visited the Elrayan School and spoke to other teachers, like Miss Zeinab Abdelrahman, from North Darfur. She teaches history, natural sciences and the Quran. She studied journalism but found the work –often in the evenings – too unsafe and started teaching at a state school. She lives near the school, in District 43, and joined the Elrayan School in 2021.
Zeinab also emphasised the importance of ‘alternative ways’ of presenting the curriculum. “Many children don’t like history – all those long lists of dates – so I take a different approach. We go on a journey into the past. For example, I’ll put up a map of America and we’ll travel there together. By really experiencing the journey, they retain so much more.”
Teacher Maradona Yagoub, born in the Nuba Mountains, also highlighted the importance of presenting the often-dry subject matter in an engaging way, for example through stories and drama.
Maradona is his real name, he said with a laugh. “I was born after the world star scored ‘the goal of the century’ in 1986. So, my father, a huge football fan, decided to give me this name”.
He graduated from the Faculty of Music and Drama at the University of Sudan in Khartoum in 2009, but he chose to teach at primary schools, “because children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods are also entitled to a good education”. After working at church schools for a few years, he chose the Elrayan School. “Here, we mainly focus on remedial teaching: improving reading skills,” he said.
“There is a huge gap in all areas in the neighbourhoods surrounding the school. There are hardly any facilities. Most parents are uneducated, so the children don’t pick up anything at home”, says the highly committed teacher.
According to Maradona, brushing up on basic skills and comprehension is more important than following the curriculum. “It’s better for the pupils to understand the subject matter than simply to learn the lessons by heart”, he said. “And the fact that they aren’t beaten if they don’t know something is another great thing here at Elrayan School. We do our best. After all, they’re our children.”
The fact that corporal punishment isn’t used at the Elrayan School is something that pupils transferring from other schools never fail to mention. Not only little Hozeifa (see also the November 2022 newsletter), but also Malas and Aguek explained why they love going to the Elrayan School so much. Malas, from the Nuba Mountains, was in Year 5 at the end of 2022. The then 11-year-old pupil loved Arabic and history, and especially Miss Fatima, “because she is calm and repeats things a lot”.
Aguek, from South Sudan, comes from Abyei. He was fifteen years old at the time and in Year 6. He explained that he fled to Omdurman with his family in 2016. They speak Dinka at home, and he has only learnt Arabic since arriving in Sudan. “What I really like about the Elrayan School is that they explain everything clearly, are very patient, and never really get angry.”
Miss Afoudia, one of the school’s founders, explained that they try to make the activities in the school playground in the morning, before lessons begin, as appealing as possible. “Each class in turn is assigned the task of giving a presentation to the others. They always prepare for this very seriously. And in this way, we regularly discover unexpected talents among the pupils.”
Very grateful
The registration fee for the state exams was partly paid by Verena Willand, who has been contributing to these costs for years. The Klumpers family traditionally makes a monthly contribution towards the school fees but also transferred an extra-large sum in December. We are very grateful to them!
We would also like to thank board member Elseline, who, together with family and friends, once again baked hundreds of Dutch doughnuts on 31 December. With the proceeds from this initiative, and other generous donations, such as that from the Cacti Young Plants company, we can once again fund the expensive school breakfasts at the Elrayan School and Salwa’s Childcare Centre for several months!
The school breakfast is desperately needed, Jirjis explained back in January. Due to a delay in transferring the funds to the Elrayan School at the end of December, the children went without breakfast for two days – a meal which for most pupils constitutes the main meal of the day. “You should have seen them; around 12 o’clock they would slump and their concentration would be completely gone”, he explained. “Another important thing is that breakfast not only improves performance but also eases the burden on parents or carers.”
The East Africa Education Foundation supports three self-help schools in Sudan: the Elrayan School and Salwa’s Childcare Centre in Omdurman, and the Eisa Mahanna School for children with disabilities in Elgezira Aba. From April 2024, the foundation also focused on food aid, in the form of two soup kitchens (reduced to one kitchen in early 2025), food parcels and direct financial assistance. Currently, 79 families receive an envelope with a small amount of money every month. “They often use this to pay for additional expenses, such as medicines”, said Master Jimeez during a telephone consultation.
We are able to continue providing this support thanks to our loyal monthly and annual donors and one-off donations. This gives poor children in deprived areas a real chance to have a better future. Thank you very much!
A new board member
And finally, we’d like to introduce the newest and also youngest member of the board: Mara Treijtel (24). She has a degree in Communications and will be helping us with social media posts. Follow @sudanschools on Instagram and Facebook.
That’s all for this newsletter. Do you have any questions? Please email them to
onderwijsoostafrika@yahoo.com.
Kind regards from the board, Djûke, Marjan, Elseline, Nadim, Mara and Rianne
Amsterdam, 23 March 2026
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