With no permanent government and militant groups controlling large expanses of territory, Somalia has been the ultimate “failed state” for more than two decades. Unsurprisingly higher education has all but collapsed. Classes at Somali National University were suspended indefinitely in the early 1990s and just a handful of institutions continue to operate.
Now, stability is returning and reconstruction has begun. The national university reopened last year and the potential for higher education is huge: three-quarters of this East African country’s population is younger than 30, and 46 percent is below age 15.
However, with a government that remains fragile and ineffective and with the Islamist militant group known as al-Shabab yet to be defeated, significant obstacles to the development of universities remain. This was highlighted in April by the attack on Garissa University College in Kenya, which was launched by al-Shabab from within Somalia and left 147 people dead.
But Abdulkareem Jama, executive vice-president of Mogadishu’s City University, argues that developing higher education in Somalia is “easier than (in) most places”. “I cannot imagine a country where one can have an impact that is so fundamental as regulating higher education or putting in place steps that will improve it,” he says. “Because the political class is small and knows each other, it is easier for us to come up with something, sell it to the minister or president and put it into place.” Jama, who returned to Somalia in 2009 from a successful career in the US that spanned three decades, is certainly well connected: he served as senior adviser to the Somalian president and then as the country’s information minister before joining City University, a private, not-for-profit institution.
Jama told Times Higher Education that regulation is the key challenge facing Somalia’s emerging higher education sector.
Following the return of peace to much of the country, there has been a proliferation of for-profit universities, with some 40 now operating in the capital alone. Few of their lecturers have Ph Ds or even Master’s degrees and, while tuition is often in English, many for-profit universities do not provide English language training. Therefore, although these private universities make big profits, the effectiveness of the learning that takes place is questionable, says Jama.
In most countries, this would be a case where the government would be expected to step in but, in Somalia, academics are doing it themselves. City University, which recruits faculty from across Africa and further afield and is one of the few universities to maintain basic entry standards, is working with similar institutions as part of the Somali Research and Education Network.