Issue No. 571

The education sector in Somalia has been nothing short of devastated by decades of armed conflict in the country. Today, three-quarters of school-age children lack access to formal education, with the country’s education deficit one of the most acute in the world. For girls, ingrained cultural practices and stereotypes have contributed to the low enrolment rate of just 25%. But lack of complete education only tells part of the story.
 
Al-Shabaab (AS) maintains a stranglehold on education across much of central and southern Somalia. The militant group has established schools teaching its hard-line Salafist version of Islam. Other schools are allowed to operate at a high cost, but only if they too teach a Salafist curriculum. Such curricula, for both primary and secondary schools, warn against “foreign teachings,” instilling a heady dose of indoctrination and promoting Arabic over Somali. Girls must be segregated and still fully covered. Teachers who previously taught at non-AS schools have been forced to ‘retrain’ in its extreme curricula.
 
AS also extracts high taxes on schools across Somalia, not just in the territories it controls, through fear and intimidation. The recent blockade of Baidoa was reportedly triggered by the detention of teachers by South West State forces en route to pay a monthly tax of USD 300. In early July, security officials reported that the militant group had resumed taxing private schools and universities in Mogadishu, issuing threats to administrators who did not comply.
 
More painful than taxes, however, are the ongoing seizures of young people to force them to join the militant group. Between August 2016 and September 2019, the UN reported that 4,462 children had been abducted in Somalia, nearly all by Al-Shabaab. Boys who were kidnapped have said their ‘military training’ combined ideological brainwashing and weapons instruction, often before being sent to the frontlines.
 
In 2018, the Horn of Africa Director for Human Rights Watch said, “Many children have fled school or their homes” to “escape that cruel fate.” Many families have avoided sending their children to school for fear they will be taken for jihad. Any resistance is likely to be met with brutality. For example, in January 2013, Al-Shabaab reportedly kidnapped more than 100 Mullahs in Eldheer town in Galmudug over a dispute regarding recruiting boys.
 
Al-Shabaab has also proved deadly in its campaign to eradicate secular and moderate forms of Islamic education in Somalia. A particularly grim case involved a double car bombing of the country’s Ministry of Education in October 2021 in Mogadishu; this attack left over 120 people dead and hundreds more injured. Since 2018, AS has also killed teachers in northeastern Kenya, deliberately targeting Christians and non-Somalis. And Al-Shabaab’s exploitation of children in central Somalia was central in driving clan uprisings in 2022, driving the militant group from much of Galmudug and Hirshabelle.
 
More generally, soaring displacement due to armed conflict and severe drought is compounding the immense pressure on Somalia’s limited support for its children. Constraints on access and funding mean 63 districts across Somalia are experiencing significant gaps in child protection. Children are at particular risk of violence and exploitation in the country’s vast, largely ungoverned internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. Others simply have no access to full-time education. Children are still used as free labour by their families and communities and, despite various initiatives, there has been little progress in eradicating child labour in Somalia. Parliament must consider legislation regarding the legal age of youth employment, as well as child trafficking and sexual exploitation.
 
The Federal Government of Somalia has taken some important steps to address these challenges. Education funding was quadrupled in the federal budget for 2023, alongside plans to significantly increase the number of teachers in the country. International support for education has also been increased. Education Cannot Wait, in coordination with UNICEF, recently announced USD 2 million for 15,000 displaced children in southern Somalia. But far more funding is needed to prioritise education, including as a catalyst for overall social and economic development.
 
Al-Shabaab will not be dislodged overnight from its strongholds in southern and central Somalia. It is tightly embedded in the fabric of hundreds of villages and towns, exercising power over everything from education to courts. But this doesn’t mean the Somali government or its international partners should abandon the country’s education system. Just the opposite, it makes their efforts in support of education even more critical. Routes to radicalisation are diverse and individual, but the indoctrination of students into Al-Shabaab’s violent Salafist ideology is deeply damaging to Somali society overall. Providing psychosocial support services to students and teachers abducted and otherwise affected by Al-Shabaab could mitigate the trauma they’ve experienced. But combating AS’s toxic curricula needs comprehensive and coordinated policies across the board.