Education
Every child has the right to learn
Challenge
More than three million children in Somalia are out of school.In many areas across the country, parents are not able to fund their children’s education. In addition to poverty, long distances to school, safety concerns, social norms favouring boys’ education, and lack of teachers, particularly female teachers, and the low availability of sanitation facilities, stop parents from enrolling children, particularly girls, in school.
More than three million children in Somalia are out of school.
When children make it to school, they are rarely able to benefit from it fully. Classrooms are often overcrowded, water and sanitation facilities are inadequate, and trained teachers and school books are hard to come by. The poor quality of education is reflected in students’ results. Children living with disabilities face even more challenges and adolescent girls are seldom able to complete secondary education.
Children in nomadic pastoralist communities are constantly on the move and often denied their rights for an education. The ongoing conflict and natural disasters also continue to displace children and families, making it very difficult for them to continue schooling.
Upholding the right to education promotes normalcy and can give hope for the future, not only for children but also their families and communities.
Solution
Quality education equips children to succeed in life, providing them with lifeskills to take care of themselves, and fulfill their potential.
UNICEF is dedicated to ensuring that all girls and boys in Somalia can enjoy their right to a quality education, from early learning opportunities all the way through secondary school.
To achieve this, UNICEF Somalia works closely with the Government of Somalia to:
Improve access
This means ensuring that more girls and boys, including the most disadvantaged children, have an opportunity to attend and learn in school. UNICEF works with local authorities and partners to provide children from nomadic and pastoralist and other out-of-school children an opportunity to go to school. With local authorities and partners, we seek to implement approaches which consider the way of life of targeted communities. This means applying an adaptable calendar and timetables, providing temporary learning spaces along migration routes, mobile libraries, and complementary interactive audio instruction. It also includes delivering a specific curriculum for basic education in a fast-tracked format through a flexible timetable. We also help to mobilize communities to prioritise the education of children, particularly girls, and be fully engaged in their children’s education.
Enhance learning and skills
Quality learning requires a safe environment, and qualified and motivated teachers. It also entails that learning outcomes are monitored and feed back into teaching. In Somalia, we, together with partners, support the government in building a strong education system. We also promote innovative solutions to improve quality of education and learning. As part of the work, we help to strengthen the capacity of teachers, provide high quality teaching and learning materials; and develop key learning and teaching policies, curriculum and learning assessments.
Work in emergencies
This entails making sure that children in emergencies and on the move are protected and have opportunities to access education either for the first time or to continue learning. We continue to support the Ministries of Education to take ownership over Education-in-Emergencies programming and integrating displaced communities as part of their education service delivery wherever possible. We also support capacity development of the education authorities at all levels as well as school communities and children to mitigate risks, build resilience to shocks and respond to and support the recovery of crisis-affected children, while also addressing the underlying chronic vulnerabilities.