Ensuring Access To Education For All In Somalia

Bisharo Ali Hussein
Galkacyo, Somalia

Basic Education for children and youth, especially girls, is an important commitment of the government and humanitarian agencies in Somalia, and a difficult one to fulfill. Humanitarian agencies, private organizations and the government have made a significant contribution through training teachers and providing limited material assistance to primary schools and to the Koranic schools which offer some elements of basic education-literacy, numeracy, hygiene, conflict resolution and peace building strategies to pupils.

To extended access to education, particularly for girls, it is essential to help parents understand its importance and what specific benefits can be derived from it. There is a need for a drastic increase in the level of social mobilization and community education to help the population understand the need, particularly with respect to education of girls.


Education in Somalia is taking new change initiatives and strategies to ensure education reaches all children wherever they are. “Good change processes develop trust, relevance and desire to get better results. Accountability and improvement can be effectively interwoven, but it requires great sophistication”. To understand change at all levels, it is important to know what change looks like from different points of view. How the teacher, student, local and international government see change is vital to understand how individuals and groups act and, indeed, react to each other.

Reforming school systems to become inclusive is not only about putting in place recently-developed inclusive policies that meet the needs of all learners, but also about changing the culture of classrooms, schools, districts and universities etc. It’s important to note that these change processes towards inclusion often begin on a small scale and involve overcoming some obstacles such as:- Limited resources, in appropriate organization, lack of necessary skills, lack of understanding and existing attitude and value.

‘’ The challenge of development is the challenge of education for all, and the challenge of achieving education for all is the challenge of education for girls”.



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