Somalia: Education Country Brief

January 2024
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Background

This brief provides data and references to the literature on issues that matter for education in Somalia. It is part of a series that provides a brief introduction to the state of education systems in Africa. The work was prepared for country pages on IICBA’s website and a digital repository of resources at the country, sub-regional, and continental level. The brief series also informs work conducted in the context of (i) the European Union’s Africa Regional Teachers’ Initiative and (ii) the KIX (Knowledge and Innovation eXchange) Africa 19 Hub for anglophone countries that promotes the use of evidence for policy making and benefits from funding from the Global Partnership for Education and Canada’s International Development Research Center. This brief and its associated webpage are meant to be updated as new information becomes available, at least on a yearly basis. 

Key resources: This brief provides the following resources: 

  • Educational outcomes: Estimates are provided for learning poverty (the share of 10-year-old children not able to read and understand a simple text), educational attainment and/or enrollment rates at various levels of education, the components of the human capital index, and human capital wealth as a share of national wealth. 
  • Selected literature: Links are provided to selected publications at the global, regional, and country levels with a focus on six themes: (i) learning assessment systems; (ii) early childhood education; (iii) teaching and learning; (iv) the data challenge; (v) gender equality; and (vi) equity and inclusion. 
  • Country policies: Links are provided to key institutions (including Ministries) managing the education system, selected policy and planning documents, and websites that aim to provide comparative data on policies across countries.
  • Knowledge repositories and other resources: Links are provided to a dozen digital repositories that collate publications and resources on education issues in Africa. 
  • Data: Links are provided to data sources that can help inform education policy.

This country brief provides a brief introduction to selected issues and research relevant to Somalia’s education system and links to resources that may be useful to official of Ministries of Education and other education stakeholders. A special focus is placed on thematic areas from the KIX (Knowledge and Innovation eXchange) initiative for which UNESCO IICBA manages the Secretariat of the Africa KIX 19 Hub. Together with the associated webpages on UNESCO IICBA’s website, the brief is to be updated as new information becomes available, typically every year. The brief starts with a review of basic data on educational outcomes including learning poverty, educational attainment, and the human capital index. The focus then shifts to information related to the thematic areas of focus of the KIX Africa 19 Hub, namely: (i) learning assessment (ii) early childhood education; (iii) teaching & learning (iv) data challenge; (v) gender equality; and (vi) equity and inclusion. The brief also includes links to country documents and processes as well as a range of other resources and websites.

Educational Outcomes and Human Capital

Somalia, like many other African countries, is facing a learning crisis. In sub-Saharan Africa, learning poverty, defined as the share of children unable to read and understand an age-appropriate text by age 10, is estimated at 89 percent by the World Bank, UNESCO, and other organizations. While specific country estimates are not available for Somalia, according to USAID, nearly 85% of children are not enrolled in school.  Even those who attend school are not necessarily learning. According to UNESCO IIEP, the School Life Expectancy, which denotes the average years of education that Somali children can anticipate in their lifetime, stands at 1.72 years. This is considerably lower than the continental African average of 7.7 years. 

Despite these challenges to access, IIEP notes that in recent years, one notable accomplishment in the Somali education sector has been the reintroduction of national primary and secondary exams. Despite challenges in education access, these assessments have demonstrated positive learning outcomes. In 2020, 90% of grade eight students passed the end-of-cycle exams at the primary level. Results showed gender parity, with both female and male students achieving similar pass rates.

Furthermore, the coverage of end-of-secondary examinations has expanded significantly, with 11 times more students taking the exam in 2020 compared to its introduction in 2015. Despite this broader participation, the pass rate decreased slightly but remained relatively high at 75% in 2020.

In 2020, female students constituted only 38% of those taking the Form 4 examination, although this proportion has been increasing over time. Despite their underrepresentation in the exam takers, there is a notable level of gender parity in pass rates, with female students achieving an average of 74%, while male students achieve 75%. UIS does contain certain statistics on completion rates; however, many of those statistics are over 10 years old for Somalia.

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Selected Literature

Supporting countries in using evidence for policymaking is an objective shared by many organizations and initiatives. Under the KIX initiative for which UNESCO IICBA manages the KIX Africa 19 Hub and collaborates with KIX Africa 21, the focus is on six themes: (i) learning assessment systems (ii) early childhood education; (iii) teaching and learning (iv) the data challenge; (v) gender equality; and (vi) equity and inclusion. For each topic, a link is provided to the GPE-KIX Discussion paper written at the start of the initiative in 2019 and additional publications that could be useful for policy. By necessity, to keep this brief short, only a few resources can be mentioned, but additional resources can be accessed through digital repositories listed below. A brief note on UNESCO IICBA research is also provided.

Learning Assessment Systems [GPE-KIX Discussion Paper]. Learning assessment tools and systems are essential to gauge and improve learning outcomes for students. A primer on large scale assessments from the World Bank provides guidance on such assessments, as does a review of learning assessments in Africa from UNESCO IIEP. Among regional assessments, PASEC (Programme for the Analysis of Education Systems) for francophone countries in West and Central Arica and SEACMEQ (Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality) for anglophone countries in East and Southern Africa are the best known. These instruments target primary schools. Other tools that focus and assess the learning outcomes of young learners include the Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Assessments (EGRA/EGMA). Supported and funded primarily by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), these assessments are administered by different agencies such as the World Bank, RTI International and others across the continent. The West African Examinations Council also provides guidance on examinations and certificate accreditation in Anglophone countries of West Africa Also interesting is PISA for development which is being piloted in secondary schools in a few African countries.  

Somalia does not participate in these international assessments, but Somalia has participated in the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) most recently in 2018. As reported in a 2022 IIEP education sector analysis of the country’s education system, national examinations have only been recently introduced. The primary leaving examination was implemented in 2020, while the secondary leaving examination was introduced in 2015. The report also addresses the lack of school-based assessments or regional and global standardized assessments as limitations to better understanding learning achievement. The 2020 National Education Policy sections of curriculum development, evaluation and regulations address learning assessments.

Improving Teaching and Learning [GPE-KIX Discussion Paper]. How teachers and students interact and engage is key to improve learning outcomes. Cost-effective approaches pr ‘smart buys’ to improve learning in low-income countries are discussed in a World Bank report. Teaching is paramount, and therefore so are teacher policies to ensure that successful teachers make for successful students. Standards for the teaching profession were proposed by Education International and UNESCO with regional standards available from the Africa Union Commission, including a framework for standards and competencies. 

Somalia uses a 6-2-4-4 structure including six years of primary, two years of lower secondary and four years upper secondary, and four years of higher education.

Strengthening Early Childhood Care and Education [GPE-KIX Discussion Paper]. Experiences children undergo in early childhood can affect their entire life. Nurturing care is essential. Essential interventions in early childhood include pre-primary education.  Yet less than half of young children in Africa benefit from pre-primary education according to the Global Education Monitoring report 2021. The Office of Research at UNICEF maintains a webpage with useful links to organizations working on child-related themes organized by subject, including early childhood. 

UNICEF states that that more than three million children in Somalia are out of school. Nomadic pastoralist children face persistent challenges in accessing education due to their nomadic lifestyle. Ongoing conflicts and natural disasters further disrupt their ability to attend school, displacing both children and families. In August 2023, the Federal Government of Somalia approved the Children’s Rights Act paving way to further institutionalizing children’s rights in the country. According to the country’s nurturing care profile, 2% of Somali children attend some form of early childhood education.

Achieving Gender Equality In and Through Education [GPE-KIX Discussion Paper]. The cost of gender inequality is massive, as is the cost of not educating girls, including in Africa. When girls lack education, this affects their earnings in adulthood, the number of children they will have and their health, as well as their agency, among others. When girls are not in school, they are also at higher risk of child marriage, with again high costs for them, their children, and society. In Africa, the African Union’s International Centre for the Education of Girls and Women in Africa supports member states on girls’ education. 

A 2022 UNICEF report on Child Marriage in Eastern and Southern Africa estimates that 4 in 10 young women were first married or in union before the age of 18. 52% of women aged 20 to 24 years who were first married or in union before age 18 had no education as compared to 11% who had at least a secondary education.

Data Management Systems Strengthening [GPEKIX Discussion Paper]. Education management information systems (EMIS) are key for management. They can also support evidence-based policymaking. In Africa, the African Union’s Institute of Education for Development supports member states on EMIS. In addition to EMIS data, other data sources including household surveys, school surveys, student assessments, and impact evaluations of pilot interventions are essential to inform policy. 

In 2018, the World Bank conducted a study on EMIS in Somalia and recommended greater collaboration among key EMIS stakeholders and establishing a dedicated section on the Ministry’s website where data and reports generated by different states, donors and development partners can be easily shared. 

Equity and Inclusion/ No One Behind [GPEKIX Discussion Paper]. Equity and inclusion are major challenges for education systems. Gender, disability, ethnicity, indigenous status, poverty, displacement, and many other factors may all lead some children to lack access to education. In Africa especially, gaps in educational outcomes between groups may be large, as illustrated in the case of disability. Equity must be at the center of education policy on the continent. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) are Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) are two major international frameworks related to disability-inclusive education exist.

The Provisional Constitution of the Federal Republic of Somalia 2012 notes that every citizen has the right to free education up to secondary school. However, UNHCR notes that due to the scarcity of public schools providing free education in Somalia, many refugee and asylum-seeking children cannot attend private schools because of their financial constraints. In Somalia, USAID spearheaded a five-year (2015-2020) program focusing on providing alternative education to tens of thousands of learners in three regions in the country. An evaluation found that while the program made notable strides in its primary aim of extending access to alternative basic education for marginalized learners, it encountered comparatively less progress in its secondary and tertiary aims of delivering high-quality education, improving reading proficiency, and reinforcing the education system. 

Somalia ratified the CRC in 2015 and ratified the Rights of Persons with Disabilities CRPD in 2019. The National Disability Policy of the Republic of Somaliland 2012 addresses special education. 

Note on UNESCO IICBA Research. IICBA recently launched a new program of applied research on teacher and education issues in Africa. A total of 200 publications have been completed from January to September 2023, including studies, discussion papers, training guides, reports, knowledge briefs, event summaries, and interviews. Several of those publications focus on Somalia. All publications are available on IICBA’s website. 

Country Policies 

Information on Somalia’s education system and policies is available on the website of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education which covers basic and higher education while the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs  covers technical education and vocational training (TVET). The National Education Sector Strategic Plan (2022-2026) is the flagship policy guiding the sector. The 2022 Education Sector Analysis report by UNESCO IIEP provides an overview of the education landscape in Somalia. It highlights the existing challenges and prospects within the sector, presenting education metrics within different sub-sectors. Furthermore, the report establishes a foundation of evidence for identifying priority policy areas. Somalia does not have a teaching service commission.  

A few organizations aim to capture education policies on specific themes across countries, including Somalia. UNESCO’s Profiles Enhancing Education Reviews (PEER) covering the themes of the Global Education Monitoring reports, including: inclusion in education (2020 Report), non-state actors in education (2021/22 Report), technology in education (2023 Report) and leadership in education (2024/25 Report, forthcoming). PEER also covers additional topics on key SDG 4 issues, including financing for equity, climate change communication and education, and comprehensive sexuality education. 

Knowledge Repositories

Only a few links to the literature on education by theme for Somalia, Africa, and globally were provided earlier to keep the brief short, but repositories of digital resources facilitate access to the literature. A few of those repositories are listed below by alphabetical order:

Many organizations maintain websites that include country pages with useful information. Examples include the GPE Somalia Country Page; World Bank Somalia Country Page; UNESCO IIEP Country Page. Many organizations also maintain blogs on education issues, often with stories on Africa. Examples include Education for All (Global Partnership for Education), Education for Global Development (World Bank), Education Plus Development (Brookings Institutions), and World Education Blog (UNESCO). Beyond blogs focusing on education, blogs on Africa more generally may also provide useful resources. This includes Africa Can End Poverty and Nasikiliza (the World Bank’s two blogs for sub-Saharan Africa ) and  Arab Voices (the Bank’s blog for the Middle East and North Africa).

Data

It is often useful to download data for Somalia and other countries from multi-country databases. The largest database on development, including education data, is the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI). The World Bank also maintain the Education Statistics (EdStats) database. Both World Bank databases rely in part for education on data from the UNESCO Institute of Statistics. UNESCO also maintains the Global Education Observatory and the World Inequality Database in Education (WIDE), as well as a wide range of other databases. Specific estimates are occasionally maintained by other agencies. For example, UNICEF provides data on out-of-school rates, adjusted net attendance rates, completion rates, foundational learning skills, information communication technology skills, youth and adult literacy rates, and school-age digital connectivity. Another useful reference is StatCompiler which provides data at various levels of aggregation from Demographic and Health Surveys across countries and over time, including Somalia. For comparison purposes, data from the OECD for member and partner countries (including South Africa) can be useful.

References

References are available through the links provided in this brief.