The workshop was opened by Honourable Michael Lopuke Lotyam, Undersecretary, MoGEI, in the presence of the UNESCO Country Representative and Head of the Juba Office, Mr. Sardar Umar Alam.  The Undersecretary made a speech at the opening in which he underlined the importance of South Sudan’s funding request to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the benefits that would accrue from it.  He called on the participants, which constitute nearly all the Directors General (DGs) of the Ministry, Directors of the relevant directorates, and technical staff to work hard to refine the draft General Education Sector Plan (GESP) that was shared with the GPE Secretariat, and from whom very valuable comments and feedback for improvement were received. 

On his part, Mr. Alam spoke on the need to set priorities within the GESP framework in order to maximize the impact of the programme. 

In addition to the GESP, the workshop will revise the Multi-year Action Plan (MAP) prepared by the MoGEI to accompany the GESP.  Both the GESP and MAP were assessed by an external consultant as this was required by the GPE as part of the requirements for the funding application. The workshop will therefore consider the feedback and comments of the external assessor in trying to make the two documents acceptable to the GPE Board.

The workshop aims to discuss the way forward for the application that South Sudan shall be submitting to the GPE in September 2017.  In preparation for that, the workshop will establish a Technical Working Group (TWG) which will oversee the application process from now up to September 2017.  There will also be a presentation on the guidelines and correct procedures to be followed in putting together required documents, and selection of an agency to manage the funds once secured.

South Sudan has limited up to date educational data, and the EMIS Unit of the MoGEI is trying its level best to close the data gap in the country which affects proper planning and implementation.  In this connection, the EMIS Unit shall present the EMIS 2016 Statistical Booklet that it recently published, and an exercise is planned on data extraction and use as part of an attempt to familiarise MoGEI planners and other technical staff with the correct use of educational data.