In the green fields of Balad Hawo, Somalia, free education is a distant dream for many. While education is deemed a basic right for everyone, a gaping void in this promise remains, especially when it comes to giving girls the same educational opportunities as boys. With gender disparities starkly visible, the educational landscape appears uneven, like a seesaw tilted on one side.
The cold, hard truth of the matter is that Somali girls face towering obstacles in their educational journey. Numbers from 2022 paint a vivid picture: a mere 28% of pupils in Somali schools are girls, leaving a hefty 72% occupied by their male counterparts. Moreover, the literacy rates echo this disparity, as just 22% of adult women can read and write, against a higher 54% for adult men.
Amidst these daunting numbers, there’s a flicker of hope in the Gedo region, a place long battered by chaos and conflict, now pushing for more inclusivity in schools. Here, the scales are starting to balance, with girls comprising over 40% of students in local schools—a promising leap forward.
In the district of Balad Hawo alone, over 12,000 students packed the classrooms in the past academic year. Out of these, a noteworthy chunk—about 5,500—were girls, making up 45% of the total, according to records from the Ministry of Education.
The crusade for change is picking up steam across local communities. Take Balad Amiin, for instance, a pastoral hamlet on the brink of the Kenyan frontier. It’s witnessing a surge in female school attendance. Ibrahim Kalil Ibrahim, deputy principal at a school there, shared, “We’ve got 367 girls out of 722 enrolled this year. It’s a big lift. Folks around here are getting wise to the magic of school for girls.”
The shift isn’t confined to just one school. Balad Hawo Secondary School, a pioneering government high school, showcases a similar trend. Abdulna’em, the principal at Balad Amiin, noted the jump in girls progressing to higher grades. “They were mostly stuck in primary classes before, but now it’s a different story,” he observed. Yet, even with such growing figures, financial hurdles pose a real snag. “Families often foot the bill for boys when tuition’s involved, leaving many girls at a dead-end even after starting school,” Abdulna’em lamented.
Despite strides made, cultural and financial challenges still throw a wrench in the works. “The roadblocks in girls’ education are many, starting from the schools themselves,” said Abdiaziz Mubarak, steering the research helm at Gedo University. For rural girls, secondary schooling seems a pipe dream, given the frequent parental preference for boys. Marriage pressures, traditional norms, and monetary woes also add to the burden.
Abdiaziz laid out the need to flip these dated beliefs on their head. “There’s this wild idea that if a girl can read, she’s set just to become a homemaker. We’ve gotta ditch that mindset,” he urged. For him and fellow advocates, breaking these educational shackles is pivotal not just for individuals but for the entire nation’s revival after years of conflict.
As a popular saying goes, and Abdiaziz echoes it passionately, “An educated mother is the foundation of a learned community.” Tackling these hurdles head-on isn’t just necessary—it’s critical—for Somalia’s future development and progress toward a brighter, more educated tomorrow.
Edited by: Ali Musa
alimusa@axadletimes.com
Axadle international–Monitoring
