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Somalia Education
In the colonial period, Italian Somaliland and British
Somaliland pursued different educational policies. The Italians
sought to train pupils to become farmers or unskilled workers so
as to minimize the number of Italians needed for these purposes.
The British established an elementary education system during the
military administration to train Somali males for administrative
posts and for positions not previously open to them. They set up
a training school for the police and one for medical orderlies.
During the trusteeship period, education was supposedly
governed by the Trusteeship Agreement, which declared that
independence could only be based on "education in the broadest
sense." Despite Italian opposition, the UN had passed the
Trusteeship Agreement calling for a system of public education:
elementary, secondary, and vocational, in which at least
elementary education was free. The authorities were also to
establish teacher training institutions and to facilitate higher
and professional education by sending an adequate number of
students for university study abroad.
The result of these provisions was that to obtain an
education, a Somali had the choice of attending a traditional
Quranic school or the Roman Catholic mission-run government
schools. The language of instruction in all these schools was
Arabic, not Somali. The fifteen pre-World War I schools (ten
government schools and five orphanage schools) in Italian
Somaliland had an enrollment of less than one-tenth of 1 percent
of the population. Education for Somalis ended with the
elementary level; only Italians attended intermediate schools. Of
all Italian colonies, Somalia received the least financial aid
for education.
In British Somaliland, the military administration appointed
a British officer as superintendent of education in 1944. Britain
later seconded six Zanzibari instructors from the East Africa
Army Education Corps for duty with the Somali Education
Department. In 1947 there were seventeen government elementary
schools for the Somali and Arab population, two private schools,
and a teachers' training school with fifty Somali and Arab
students.
Until well after World War II, there was little demand for
Western-style education. Moreover, the existence of two official
languages (English and Italian) and a third (Arabic, widely
revered as the language of the Quran if not widely used and
understood) posed problems for a uniform educational system and
for literacy training at the elementary school level.
The relative lack of direction in education policy in the
prerevolutionary period under the SRC gave way to the enunciation
in the early 1970s of several goals reflecting the philosophy of
the revolutionary regime. Among these goals were expansion of the
school system to accommodate the largest possible student
population; introduction of courses geared to the country's
social and economic requirements; expansion of technical
education; and provision of higher education within Somalia so
that most students who pursued advanced studies would acquire
their knowledge in a Somali context. The government also
announced its intention to eliminate illiteracy. Considerable
progress toward these goals had been achieved by the early 1980s.
In the societal chaos following the fall of Siad Barre in
early 1991, schools ceased to exist for all practical purposes.
In 1990, however, the system had four basic levels--preprimary,
primary, secondary, and higher. The government controlled all
schools, private schools having been nationalized in 1972 and
Quranic education having been made an integral part of schooling
in the late 1970s.
The preprimary training given by Quranic schools lasted until
the late 1970s. Quranic teachers traveled with nomadic groups,
and many children received only the education offered by such
teachers. There were a number of stationary religious schools in
urban areas as well. The decision in the late 1970s to bring
Islamic education into the national system reflected a concern
that most Quranic learning was rudimentary at best, as well as a
desire for tighter government control over an autonomous area.
Until the mid-1970s, primary education consisted of four
years of elementary schooling followed by four grades designated
as intermediate. In 1972 promotion to the intermediate grades was
made automatic (a competitive examination had been required until
that year). The two cycles subsequently were treated as a single
continuous program. In 1975 the government established universal
primary education, and primary education was reduced to six
years. By the end of the 1978-79 school year, however, the
government reintroduced the eight-year primary school system
because the six-year program had proved unsatisfactory.
The number of students enrolled in the primary level
increased each year, beginning in 1969-70, but particularly after
1975-76. Primary schooling theoretically began at age six, but
many children started later. Many, especially girls, did not
attend school, and some dropped out, usually after completing
four years.
In 1981 Somalia informed the UN Conference on the Least
Developed Countries that the nomadic population was "omitted from
the formal education program for the purposes of forecasting
primary education enrollment." In the late 1970s and early 1980s,
the government provided a three-year education program for
nomadic children. For six months of each year, when the seasons
permitted numbers of nomads to aggregate, the children attended
school; the rest of the year the children accompanied their
families. Nomadic families who wanted their children to attend
school throughout the year had to board them in a permanent
settlement.
In addition to training in reading, writing, and arithmetic,
the primary curriculum provided social studies courses using new
textbooks that focused on Somali issues. Arabic was to be taught
as a second language beginning in primary school, but it was
doubtful that there were enough qualified Somalis able to teach
it beyond the rudimentary level. Another goal, announced in the
mid-1970s, was to give students some modern knowledge of
agriculture and animal husbandry. Primary school graduates,
however, lacked sufficient knowledge to earn a living at a
skilled trade.
In the late 1980s, the number of students enrolled in
secondary school was less than 10 percent of the total in primary
schools, a result of the dearth of teachers, schools, and
materials. Most secondary schools were still in urban areas;
given the rural and largely nomadic nature of the population,
these were necessarily boarding schools. Further, the use of
Somali at the secondary level required Somali teachers, which
entailed a training period. Beginning in the 1980-81 school year,
the government created a formula for allocating postprimary
students. It assumed that 80 percent of primary school graduates
would go on to further education. Of these, 30 percent would
attend four-year general secondary education, 17.5 percent either
three- or four-year courses in technical education, and 52.5
percent vocational courses of one to two years' duration.
The principal institution of higher education was Somali
National University in Mogadishu, founded in 1970. The nine early
faculties were agriculture, economics, education, engineering,
geology, law, medicine, sciences, and veterinary science. Added
in the late 1970s were the faculty of languages and a combination
of journalism and Islamic studies. The College of Education,
which prepared secondary-school teachers in a two-year program,
was part of the university. About 700 students were admitted to
the university each year in the late 1970s; roughly 15 percent of
those completed the general secondary course and the four-year
technical course. Despite a high dropout rate, the authorities
projected an eventual intake of roughly 25 percent of general and
technical secondary school graduates.
In 1990 several other institutes also admitted secondaryschool graduates. Among these were schools of nursing,
telecommunications, and veterinary science, and a polytechnic
institute. The numbers enrolled and the duration of the courses
were not known.
In addition, several programs were directed at adults. The government had claimed
60 percent literacy after the mass literacy campaign of the mid-1970s, but by
early 1977 there were signs of relapse, particularly among nomads. The government
then established the National Adult Education Center to coordinate the work
of several ministries and many voluntary and part-time paid workers in an extensive
literacy program, largely in rural areas for persons sixteen to forty-five years
of age. Despite these efforts, the UN estimate of Somali literacy in 1990 was
only 24 percent.
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