Wartime Education in Somalia

Where Is Somalia?

Somalia is a country located in the Horn of Africa, which is an eastern part of Africa that juts into the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.  Somalia is bordered from north to south by Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya and it has the longest coastline of all African countries. 

Pre-War Times and Colonization of Somalia

Somalia’s earliest schooling consisted mostly of religious men teaching children how to read, write, and memorize the Koran (the Muslim Holy Book).  In the early 1900s, Italy began colonizing Somalia and shaping their education system.  While not much was done to educate Somalis during the initial stages of colonization, between 1950 and 1960, the Italian colonial government was required by the UN Trusteeship to begin to help Somalia be ready to be independent.  Part of preparing the country for independence meant educating the people.  When Somalia became an independent nation on July 1, 1960, the nation’s education system was beginning to develop, the economy was on the rise, and the future looked promising.

In the early 1960s, Somalis valued education and sought to educate as many citizens as possible in order to foster development of a population that could contribute to the process of building up the country.  In 1962, the future of Somali education looked bright as 18,000 Somalis were enrolled in school and the Italians had set up a university that offered law and economics courses.  During this time period, the biggest setback to the growth of primary education was the lack of script for Somali language.  At the time, all teaching was done in Italian or English, which were the colonial languages. 

The Growth of Education and Political Stability

In 1972, script for writing of the Somali language was developed.  The institution of Somali script led to a great increase in literacy rates among the Somali people.  Before the script was published, literacy rates were estimated to be around 5%.  However, there was a dramatic increase in literacy after the written language was adopted and by the mid 1970s, an estimated 55% of the population was literate.  In 1974, a campaign was started to educate more people and 100,000 students were sent to rural Somalia to learn with the nation’s immense nomadic population for a minimum of six months.  During this time, there was also a substantial increase in the number of children attending primary school.  The creation of Somali script was incredibly beneficial for the country and the growth of its education system. 

Another big development in Somali education occurred in 1970 when Somali National University was opened.  It enrolled about 5,000 students and offered programs of study in law, economics, agriculture, education, veterinary medicine, medicine, industrial chemistry, geology, languages, journalism, and engineering.  Unfortunately, by the end of the decade political and economic difficulties began to arise.  Somali military began manipulating clans, which was the beginning of a downward spiral and the start of government collapse and national divide.

The Decline of Education in the 1980s

As quickly as the literacy rate increased in the early 1970s, it dropped in the late 1980s, and by 1990 the Somali literacy rate had dropped from 55% to 24% in just 15 years.  The economy had been weakened by a war with the bordering country Ethiopia in the late 1970s and the military had not put any reconstruction programs in to place following the war. 

The combination of economic collapse and corrupt military leaders led to many highly educated individuals fleeing the country.  It is estimated that 100,000 professionals left the continent in order to find better and safer employment opportunities.  This left Somalia in a very difficult position, the country now had very little educators and scarce resources to teach children.

Unfortunately, the colonization of Somalia led to many conflicts with bordering nations over the years and caused the nation to be heavily controlled by military forces.  As a result of having such a great focus on having a large and powerful military, the countries budget was mainly used to support the military and little to nothing was left to fund programs such as education and health care.  All of this led to the fall of Somalia in 1991. 

War in Somalia

In the midst of chaos and collapse of government in the early 1990s, a civil war broke out and different Somali clans began attacking each other. This fighting resulted in the destruction of 90% of Somali schools.  Education was put on the back burner as there were far more important matters to worry about.  In 1992, it is estimated that 3000 Somali children were dying each day from the civil war-triggered famine.  The United Nations started Operation Restore Hope to put an end to such high rates of child mortality.  Their efforts helped greatly but nothing was done to help fund the reconstruction of schools and search for educators.   

Post-War Struggles (Late 1990s)

Unfortunately, children of Somalia had been exposed to so much military violence that many of them turned to violence themselves.  Many chose to attack other clans and others had to be physically aggressive in order to defend themselves.  Sadly, many young adults to did not see a need to restore the government because if it was restored, there would no longer be a need for them to be gangsters, robbers, or bandits.

The country lacked resources to rebuild its schools and needed trained teachers, textbooks, and other school supplies.  Most of the buildings that used to be schools were completely desolated during the war.  Following the war, the Somali National University’s College of Education building was described  as “a displaced persons’ camp. The classrooms and dormitories were full of families; the walls were blackened by cooking fire. The library was a world of dust. Books were piled everywhere, on sagging shelves, on toppling heaps. Some were stained and disintegrating, but most were intact. Every title I saw seemed, under the circumstances, absurdly ironic: ‘The Psychology of Adolescence,’ ‘Adolescents Grow in Groups,’ ‘Primitive Government,’ ‘The Red Badge of Courage.’ Sunlight drifted through high windows on the west wall. A cow mooed somewhere. The dust was so deep that it was as though the desert itself was creeping through the walls, burying the books in fine sand.”

Reformation Today

Today, still only 30% of children are in school.  Religious leaders, business people, and youth group leaders are a few examples of people who have worked together to launch Community Education Committees to help finance schools and track children to make sure they are attending school regularly.  UNICEF is working with these people to train them in school management and administration.  UNICEF has also worked to establish a curriculum for primary schools and has provided some funding to purchase textbooks for students.  

A big concern for Somali people is the limited amount of women who are being educated.  The war caused many adult women to have to take over the jobs of their husbands who were forced to enter the military.  This resulted in young girls being needed in the home to take care of the household.  The society has placed very little value on educating women and Somalia currently has the lowest primary school enrollment rate for girls in the world at just 7%.  Another contributor to the low numbers of girls in school is safety concerns.  It is not uncommon for Somali children to have to walk 5 or more miles to get to school and many parents fear for their daughters' safety.  For this reason, girls are often pulled out of school by their parents as early as 4th of 5th grade to be married.  Girls are often forced to marry young because they are worth more if they are virgins and once they are married off, the parents are no longer financially responsible for them.  The lack of schools in close proximity to many villages and the lack of transportation also leads to many families needing their children to stay at home and work on farms as spending so much time walking to and from school each day would greatly hurt family income.  

In recent years, a local terrorist group, Al-Shabaab has been recruiting dozens of male children each day to be child soldiers.  This Islamic group has trained thousands of children for combat.  While many countries including the United States have tried to step in and help by killing off Islamic terrorist leaders, this has done little to change the situation in Somalia.  A more long-term way to help would be to focus on providing funding to adequately educate the children who are the future of Somalia.  Students in this country not only need to learn how to read, write, and do arithmetic, they also need to be taught how to respect the beliefs of others who differ from themselves.

War Time Education in Syria

By Dianna Devito and Raya Meziad

The Start of the Syrian Civil War

The Syrian Civil War started on the 15^th of March in 2011. Pro-democracy protests led by students broke out in the city of Deraa.  Many were arrested, some were tortured and punished because of anti-government slogans they posted on school walls (Rodgers, 2016).  Police forces killed several people by opening fire on demonstrators.  The students’ families were outraged which lead to more protests followed by many demanding President Assad resign (Rodgers, 2016).  The government’s violent approach only made protestors angrier.  Protests grew and spread to different cities which later led to a bigger political conflict.  It split the country into two major groups: Assad’s supporters, and rebels.

The Syrian Civil War influenced many to make life changing choices.  Many people were injured or even killed.  The war caused some Syrians to flee the country in search of a new home that would be safer and allow them to live fuller lives.  However, not many Syrians could afford to emigrate.  Staying in Syria forced citizens to get accustomed to the terrible circumstances and limited resources they had there.  At this time in Syria, there was shortage of food and very limited and expensive internet and electricity, which greatly influenced the lives of the citizens.

Education for Children in Syria- UNICEF

Life During the War

      The Syrian Civil War has been going on for almost seven years now.  The daily life of Syrian citizens has come to a halt as communities have been destroyed.  Ahmed Mjuahid, a Syrian man from the city of Darayya, told the New York Times “there are children who have been born in these five years who don’t know the taste of fruit”.  Citizens have gotten used to the sound of bombs going off on a daily basis.  But when a war goes on for as long as the Syrian Civil War has, the rest of the the world starts to get used to it as well.  Those who are not directly affected by the war “grow tired of the photographs of the dead, the smashed hospitals and destroyed schools, tired of the statistics on hunger and rape and how many shells have landed in civilian areas”.  Its not that the rest of the world no longer cares, but that we simply begin to forget that there are still people struggling to survive in Syria. 

Many youths in Syria are beginning to get jobs as their families are not able to afford their school tuition.  Many are also forced to get a job if a parent dies from war actions to bring in income to help their family.  In unfortunate cases where both parents are killed, students can no longer afford their school tuition and have to leave school completely to work.

An elementary school in Aleppo, Syria, damaged in fighting. Five years of civil war has put Syrians’ lives on hold. Credit Jerome Sessini/Magnum Photos (The New York Times)

Education in Syria After the War

The education in Syria became drastically limited due to the lack of teachers as many professional educators have moved to safer cities in Syria or outside of Syria.  This left many cities without experienced teachers and forced schools to close.  Good schools located in the center of big cities were destroyed (Dewan, 2016).  Today Syria has descended to the second worst attendance rate in the world, with 2.8 million children out of school from an almost 100% enrollment rate prior to the start of the war.  The limited electricity and heating in all of Syria forced schools too close as well.  In addition, no school trips were organized as it was unsafe to take children outside of school territories.  Outdoor classes, such as science classes, generally held outdoors, were forbidden incase of a shell going off.  This limited the education and progress of Syrian students (Dewan, 2016).

Unfortunately, even with such percussions, schools are still not safe due to the unpredicted destinations of shells proven by a previous attack on a school in northwest Syria. This attack leaded to the death of 35 people, 20 of them being children (Dewan, 2016).  “More than 4,000 schools have been destroyed in the war, and children risk their lives daily in trying to attend lessons” (Hussein, 2014).  With smaller school buildings and limited teachers, classes became as big as 40 students per room.  In some cities, children of different ages and levels were also forced to study together, which hindered progression of older students.  Many families are not able to afford school necessities for their children, such as notebooks, pens and backpacks.  However, organization such as UNICEF donate school supplies in order to aid families in need (Dewan, 2016).  But only main subjects were provided that being; Arabic, English, French, mathematics and science.  Subjects like art, music and physical education are no longer provided in Syrian schools because of the limited budget.  Because of this, there has been a decrease in children’s creativity.  In addition to all of this, even when students attend classes many of them are not able to focus and concentrate in class, due to problem at home which arise from stress of the war, or even the battle like noises happening outside of their classroom windows (Dewan, 2016).  

                                   

Syrian Students in a school classroom.  Carnegie-Middle Eastern Center (Tam Hussein)

Keeping Education Alive

            A professor from Tishreen University in Latakia City is doing all that he can to make sure Syrian youth are getting a good education, even during a time of war and injustice.  Professor Mohammed, along with many other educational professionals have set up a network of 400 schools that educate students in rebel areas of the Latakia country side (Hussein, 2014).  The hardest part about keeping this school system going is making sure it stays separate from “local rebel politics” (Hussein, 2014).  Due to the lack of educators, teachers in schools that are still up and running are not always the best suited and don’t all come from Syria.  Because of a shortage of materials, teachers may just have students read from books salvaged from inactive schools.  It is also hard for teachers to maintain a balance between reviewing information and teaching new material as students are often absent and class sizes are constantly changing (Hussein, 2014). 

            Syrian students struggle with even making it to school each day due to the threats of the war but most students understand the importance of education and want to attend school.  “It is clear also that these pupils have lost any semblance of what normality means and know the facts of war better than what civilian life actually is” (Hussein, 2014).  Students also have feelings of abandonment as their lives have been drastically changed due to the effects of the war. 

Getting Syrian Refugees Into Higher Education

Higher Education for Syrian Refugees

Higher Education for Syrians is almost unattainable. The Institute of International Education (IIE) estimates that there are are as many as 450,000 Syrian refugees between the ages of 18 to 22 years old who are not enrolled in higher education (Redden, 2015).  The reason for this? When most people think about how they can best help refugees, they think about providing food, water, and shelter; not about giving them the opportunity to go to college (Redden, 2015).  Many college-aged Syrian refugees face similar problems to those in primary and secondary school in Syria in that they simply cannot afford it.  High tuition fees, the cost of living, and the inability to travel “impede many refugees’ ability to enroll in higher education” (Redden, 2015).  Many countries who are housing and supporting Syrian refugees are creating scholarships so that refugees still have the opportunity to attend college.  The European Union has spent almost $13.5 million in scholarships and higher education courses for Syrian Refugees living in the Middle East (Redden, 2015).  Higher education opens up many opportunities, so giving Syrian refugees the chance at getting an education can potentially lead them to jobs and careers in the future.

Failure of Foreign Aid in The Congo

Chauncey Scisum and Kaloyan Danovski

History Of The Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was before known as Zaire is located in Central Africa.DRC was granted its independence on June 30th 1960. It is the second largest country in Africa with a population of 80 million plus, putting it at the  eighteenth most populated country in the world. The capital of the DRC is Kinshasa. In 1996, the Civil Wars of the Congo were the end of President Mobutu Sese Seko’s long term of 32 years. Mobutu left behind a unstable, corrupt government with many people in need.  It was said that nine African nations, 20-30 armed groups, and peacekeepers from the UN all took part in a war that totaled out to around 5.4 million deaths caused by starvation, disease, and killing.

Although, the DRC is very rich in natural resources such as diamonds, gold, uranium, copper/cobalt and oil. In fact, in 2008 the majority of the GDP occupied by oil sells(65%), and also accounted for 85% of the government's revenue. The DRC provides many of these resources to the rest of the world. During the second Congo war, there was much looting occurring of the minerals by neighboring countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, and even by some of the Congolese.

The Congo War’s

For the past two decades the Congo has been plagued with war with neighboring countries and the Congolese militias. The first Congo War was from 1996-1997, it was led by Rwanda, and was an invasion of Zaire. Despite efforts to end the wars with peace treaties, the violence has once again increased back in August of 1998 when the Second Congo

 War began. This war lasted until 2003 despite the treaty of 2002. Many of the armed groups in eastern Congo partnered with the national government, but after sometime these relations fell apart. They have all failed due to the unstable government and high number of armed militia within the country.  Much of the blame went to a new group called M23, they took their name from the peace treaty that was signed on March 23rd, 2009. They used this name because they felt that the government did not respect the treaty and what it stood for. The DRC is a country filled with millions of displaced citizens, and numbers of armed groups fighting, killing and raping throughout the country. There have been outside sources who have tried to help bring an end to the turmoil and war going on in this country. One outstanding aid was the UN, they deployed one of its largest peacekeeping missions there, along with agreements, and other peace efforts but have repetitively failed to bring the fighting to a permanent halt.

   

Soldier's marching past the Congolese people .

Former President Mobutu Sese Seko

Former President Mobutu Sese Seko’s presidency lasted for a total of 32 years. It began in November of 1965 and ended in May of 1997. At the beginning of Mobutu’s long term, he banned all political powers, and in turn formed his own called the ‘Popular Movement of the Revolution. All Congolese were required to join. Seko also made a request to have all of the trade unions form one combined union, and have it put under the control of the government. There was a lot of pushback against this from people but there were not any successful actions taken against it. Five years into his term, Sese Seko held a one party election for himself and required every Congolese citizen to vote.  Mobutu was big on “cultural awareness”, so in 1971 he renamed the country the Republic of Zaire and also launched a program to spread this awareness of the Zaire ‘culture’. It was said that “He ordered all Congolese with Christian names to drop them and change to African ones, baptism of children was outlawed and Western-style clothing and ties were banned”(imdb.com). Mobutu was strongly opposed to Western culture views and ideas, and he made this very well know with how he wanted his country dictated. Mobutu is most well know for the problems that he caused his own country; with much fighting and struggle going on in Congo, Mobutu made sure that his personal wealth would never be effected. It is said that by 1984, Mobutu had no less than $5 billion saved up. Money that he was taking away from the government and putting in his back pocket. This resulted in the destruction, and failed repair of  roads, bridges, buildings as well as other forms of infrastructure. Mobutu had the money to fix these problems, but was more concerned with his dictator mentality, and selfish desires. This also resulted in many unpaid government worker, which in turn caused substantial inflation, and caused a new level of corruption that Africa had never seen before. Mobutu was also responsible for currency devaluation, embezzlement of $4-$15 billion US dollars, and also severe debt to an entire nation. Because of all of the damage that Sese Seko had done to Congo, and its people, a new term was created for him called ‘Kleptocracy’, which  “is a government with corrupt rulers (kleptocrats) that use their power to exploit the people and natural resources of their own territory in order to extend their personal wealth and political power. Typically this system involves the embezzlement of state funds at the expense of the wider population, sometimes without even the pretense of honest service” (wikipedia.com).

Much of what the DRC is still going through today is a result of the actions of this one man.

Mobutu Sese Seko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uArRzwKHvE

Foreign Aid in the DRC

Foreign Aid that is being given to the Congo is not the problem at all. It is the weak, shattered, and corrupt  government that is causing it to continuously fail. Other nations are putting millions, and billions of dollars into the hands of political thieves who care nothing about the needs of the people. In fact, aid is hurting the people of the Congo, because it is giving them false hope about a better tomorrow. (thegaurdian.com)    In order, to allow the aid to work, there must be a change in the political culture in the DRC. Until they are ridded of selfish, narrow minded dictators, aid will do nothing but hurt the people that it is suppose to be helping.  This is all the doing of President Mobutu. He is the blame for the substantial hole that the DRC is still trying to recover from today. During his 32 year term he has done nothing but provide false hope, and lies to people who were in places of severe need.

Humanitarian aid, emergency aid, and ‘systemic aid’

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been subject to numerous aid packages in the past half-century, but an important distinction must be made between the types of aid that the country has received, mostly when talking about humanitarian aid and systemic (or systematic) aid.

Humanitarian and emergency aid in the DRC is undoubtedly necessary for the Congolese people, but in the past decades it has had mixed results. Congo has been plagued by armed conflicts, civil war, sexual abuse and violence, especially after the Rwandan genocide in 1994, after which many civilians and members of the Hutu fled to DRC (www.bbc.com). Since then, a sizeable amount of humanitarian aid funds have been directed towards relief from the unrest caused by the violent conflicts. Even with this aid, citizens from many provinces have been displaced, as much as 3 million according to the UN, who have been actively involved in the fighting that has been taking place in the Great Lakes country (www.un.org). Violence against civilians and sexual harassment towards women and young girls remain a common sight, especially in eastern Congo. One of the reasons why the process of ending these long and drawn out conflicts is so slow even with the help of the UN is because humanitarian aid missions are often ineffective at stopping the rebels and sometimes even cripple opposition efforts. An offensive carried out by the UN against the Rwandan Hutu rebels was not only unable to destroy them, but resulted in forced displacement, rape, and even the death of more than a thousand civilians, thus making the effects of the conflict even more severe (www.theguardian.com).

Some parts of the country are prone to natural disasters, such as floods and landslides, and epidemic due to the limited healthcare opportunities. Organizations like the Swedish-based SIDA are actively working towards improvement of crisis response and health intervention (www.sida.se). Overall, humanitarian aid in the DRC has helped relieve some of the consequences of the widespread military conflicts, but it still leaves much to be desired if the end goal is a state of peace under which the government can start building a strong economy and bureaucracy.

The other type of foreign aid, the so-called ‘systemic’ or ‘systematic’ aid, composes the majority of the funds that the DRC receives on a yearly basis, most of which comes from organizations such as The World Bank. In other words, this is money transferred from government to government or through specialized institutions with the intent of the social, political, cultural, economic, and infrastructural development of Congo. Unfortunately, this is not the primary way in which the money is being utilized, mainly due to deep-seated corruption in the government and its officials and a disregard for the well-being of the country and its people that stumps economic growth and investment. The rulers of the DRC, primarily President Mobutu, have, for a long time, been exploiting foreign aid funds for their own good. Even the small amount of money that does go towards the development of the country’s economy is oftentimes detrimental due to the system in place. As it stands, the poverty rate in the DRC, although improved in recent years, still remain one of the highest in the world and prior to 2010 Congo reported a below-average economic growth rate (www.worldbank.org). There are many issues with foreign aid, among which inflation, debt, and an extremely large amount of money spent on military rather than development, more than 40% of the total government spending (pdfs.semanticscholar.org). In an open discussion with Dambisa Moyo, a former consultant for The World Bank with a Ph.D. in economics, about her book Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa she explained one of the phenomena that influences the economy of many african countries - the notion of the “Dutch disease.” According to Moyo, huge influxes of money in the form of US dollars or other currencies through foreign aid packages cause the native currency of a given country, in our case - the Congolese franc (CDF), to increase in value to the point where neighbouring countries are incentivized not to import goods due to the high prices. This impedes development in the export sector, which, for many African nations, is what keeps, or should keep, the economy going because owners of exporting businesses are the only ones that have enough money available to spend domestically (pdfs.semanticscholar.org). This is only one of the factors behind the failing economy of the DRC and, along with the dire political and bureaucratic situation, there is little hope for the establishment of a working and stable government without drastic change in the country’s leadership.