School enrolment has risen sharply in Somalia’s self-declared independent region of Somaliland (pop. 3.5 million) since 1991, raising the literacy rate from 20 percent to 45 percent, say education officials.
“School enrolment (in primaries and secondaries) has increased dramatically. In 1991, we had only 1,019 students enroled in schools but by the year 2009, some 45,223 students were in school,” says Abdi Abdillahi Mohamed, the director of planning in Somaliland’s ministry of education. Somaliland declared unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991.
Ali Abdi Odowa, director-general in the education ministry, attributes the increase to rising awareness and the construction of many new primary schools. “Hundreds of schools have been built both in urban and rural areas and adult education has also started,” he says. Somaliland, he says, plans to ensure that at least 75 percent of the population is able to read and write by 2015.
According to Mohamed, 225,853 students attended primary school and 21,331 attended secondary school in 2008-09, while 26,156 were in adult education. Some 6,820 students are currently enroled in technical colleges and vocational schools. “We have also added two social science subjects in high school — business and agriculture — which we hope will encourage high school leavers to become self-employed,” he adds.
However, the ministry has received complaints from displaced persons and pastoralists about school fees and the lack of access by their children to schools. “Somaliland’s constitution stipulates that all elementary and secondary education is free; no fees are payable by students, but of course there is what we call ‘contributions’ paid by parents to support voluntary teachers and teachers’ salaries,” says Mohamed.
In remote areas, the ministry has established a pilot project where teachers follow pastoralists and teach in mobile schools. “This project is in Togdheer region... Teachers and the school follow the pastoralists wherever they go, and we pay such teachers more than the others,” says Mohamed. “We have also started school feeding centres: Pastoralists’ children are fed in boarding schools in villages when their families are on the move in search of pasture.”
(Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)