South Sudan official hails China's support to education sector

JUBA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan's education minister on Saturday applauded China's support to the country's education sector after Beijing facilitated the printing of over 700,000 textbooks for the war-torn east African nation.

Deng Deng Hoc Yai, minister of general education, said the Chinese support would help expedite the process of rolling out a new education curriculum early next year.

Hoc said that China has helped South Sudan print at least 750,000 textbooks and built the capacity of dozens of South Sudanese education experts.

"The support given to us by China is printing of almost 3 million text books, training of curriculum experts, education managers and our ICT staff. It is a big investment from their side and we are getting it free," Hoc said.

Hoc added that the world's youngest nation has signed cooperation agreements China, Egypt and Turkey in a bid to improve its education sector.

"We are grateful to the government and people of the People's Republic of China for that enormous support," he added.

Hoc spoke to journalists in Juba while announcing the start of primary school leaving examinations where some 48,000 pupils across the conflict-torn country are expected to write their secondary school entry exams from Nov. 26 to 30.