The Education We Need: Addressing Challenges in Curriculum, Teaching, Assessment & Administration

Somalia is facing two broad educational challenges: access and quality. The overwhelming majority of school-aged Somali children do not have access to basic education. This has security implications as children who do not attend school can be targeted for recruitment by extremist groups. For those who do go regularly to school, the quality of education is poor.

This report examines the issues of administration and quality and offers policy recommendations aimed at facilitating the speedy implementation of the recent agreement between the Federal Government of Somalia and the Federal Member States on education.

Using literature, the study also presents best practices that are used to tackle the challenges identified. In this regard, the report focused on curriculum content, teacher development, assessment and education administration.

On the curriculum challenges, the report argues that Somalia is missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape its education system to ensure that it addresses social ills while simultaneously responding to the developmental challenges for the 21st century.

The study found there is a need to define the country’s educational objectives and recommends the speedy implementation of the recently agreed Curriculum and Teaching Qualifications Council led by a technical team in charge of reviewing and reforming the curriculum.

Somalia is facing teacher shortages as the profession is poorly paid and not attractive to graduates. The research calls for the standardisation and regulation of teacher training and pay.

It also calls on the education authorities to launch an awareness campaign aimed at positively changing society’s negative attitudes towards the teaching profession.

The study also reports on a series of challenges in the areas of assessment and evaluation. It points out that Somalia does not have a centralised assessment and evaluation unit.

The integrity of school certificates hinges on having a reliable and valid examination system with clear objectives and standards.

The research urges the authorities to prioritize the establishment of a national board for assessment and evaluation run by specialists. It further calls for moving away from labelling students as ‘failures’ in exit exams.

On federalism and education, contradictory articles in the provisional constitution on the roles of the Federal Government of Somalia and the Federal Member States have led to constant disagreements.

The study points to the need for a clear division of power and responsibilities between the Federal Government of Somalia and the Federal Member States on education.

The process of allocating some of the education powers and responsibilities to a lower level of administration is broadly referred to as decentralisation. Based on the literature, this report discusses four common models of decentralisation: deconcentration, delegation, devolution and privatisation.

The literature identifies four types of educational provisions that can be decentralised: organisation of instruction, personnel management, planning and structures and resources. Due to the lack of empirical data, the study does not focus on one decentralised model but instead calls for further research.

READ the full report here: https://heritageinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Education-We-Deserve-1.pdf