The Grossly Under-Funded Public Schools

EDITORIAL

Public education in Somaliland has been faced with numerous challenges. At Somaliland's independence in 1991, the whole education system was already in ruins. The newly established ministry of Education has had to start everything from scratch.

With the help of international organizations, schools were rebuilt and throughout the nineties, there has been a steady expansion in both primary and secondary education. Private schools also mushroomed albeit in a chaotic fashion to complement the role of public schools.

As a result, over 100,000 pupils were enrolled in public schools by last year with an equal number of children attending private schools. This should be considered as a big achievement when compared to what was the situation like in 1991 and even earlier under the Barre's dictatorship.

But until today the national enrollment rate in schools is still less than 60% mainly due to severe shortages in classrooms and to a lesser extent in teachers. As if this stark reality wasn't good enough a reason to keep up the momentum for expanding primary and secondary education, both the government and aid agencies opted to ignore the issue.

Now the situation has reached a point where the whole public education system is on the verge of collapse. Severe shortages of qualified teachers, emanating from low wages and poor educational facilities, have rendered education at public schools an unworthy exercise.

The deteriorating situation in learning at public schools particularly in Hargeysa have forced some parents into action: they want to voluntarily raise the school fees as a financial incentive for retaining teachers and improving teaching quality.

However many parents are financially not able to meet a monthly increment of Sl. Sh 10,000 ($1.60) for secondary students (on top of the existing Sl. Sh 15,000) and Sl. Sh. 8,000 for those in the primary stage (currently at Sl.Sh. 7,000 =$1.12).

Obviously, the main impediment for improving the education situation remains the lack of adequate funding, and there is no doubt that allocation of larger education budgets is crucial for overcoming the underlying challenges in this sector. It is scandalous that spending on public education amounts to less than 3% of the government's budget. It is also unacceptable that more and more new children become deprived of educational opportunities every year simply because there were no enough schools where they could enroll.

With planning of next fiscal year's budget already underway, it is essential that a much higher proportion of the resource allocations are earmarked for improving salaries of teachers and recruiting more qualified teachers. The international community is also urgently required to assist in the building of more school classrooms, the development of teachers training and professional standards, printing of school textbooks as well as the provision of library and laboratory facilities.

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