Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently launched an initiative calling on the international community to take urgent action to address education in South Sudan. In an exclusive VOA interview, he said the current situation is difficult and intense. But after years of war, he said, "Are we to say... that a child has to be denied the right to education through all their potential school years.”

Brown also said that if the world gives up on education in South Sudan, then it will be "Letting down a whole generation and building up the seeds of discontent for the future and we should be very careful to avoid that."

The former prime minister pointed out there are already 67 million children worldwide who are not in school. And he said there is the potential for that number to increase by 2015. If he can play a part in helping out, he said, he will not hesitate because global action in education has been neglected, and the world's future depends on children being literate.