Because of the lack of public schools to provide free education in Somalia, many refugees and asylum-seeker children would not be able to attend private schools due to their poor economic situation. To address this problem in 2020, UNHCR will continue to provide primary and secondary education to refugee and asylum-seeker children through education partners.
Somali is not the mother tongue of many of the refugees and asylum-seekers in Somalia, which has been a barrier to effective learning for some refugee and asylum seeker households. The community has expressed a need for education in their native languages.
During the participatory assessment, participants in all groups of the focus group discussion in Somaliland, except Yemeni and Ethiopian refugees, confirmed their awareness of the education project. Focus Group discussions with ages 18-59 from both the Yemeni and Ethiopian refugee communities confirmed that some of refugees asylum-seekers are not sending their children to school due to lack of enough scholastic materials provided to their children during the school year which has placed a lot of burden on parents expected to cover the gap in school materials. They also expressed the lack of transportation to school which could improve the safety of children going or coming back from school.
Currently, UNHCR provides transportation, scholastic material and school uniform to refugee and asylum-seeker students enrolled in different schools in Somalia, which confirms the claims that some parents from some conservative communities do not send their children due to the fear that their children will be physically assaulted on the way to and from school. In Galkayo, no transportation is available to children, particularly girls, who live far from schools.
Free and compulsory education services do not exist in south-central Somalia as most of the schools are under the control of the private sector that charge high fees. School uniforms and textbooks are also unaffordable for refugee and asylum-seeker families without assistance. The poor livelihood situation further worsens this for many families of refugees and asylum-seekers who send their children to work to support the household. Some children from both refugee and asylum-seekers are forced to work in hazardous conditions in Mogadishu. Furthermore, the tuition fees of the Somalian education system are often too high for the families to send their children to school. School enrolment among the people of concern is the lowest in the country. In particular, girls’ enrolment into schools is lower than boys’.
Prioritized response: In 2020, UNHCR will continue to support refugees and asylum-seeker children to access primary and secondary education and will ensure to support all school-aged children. Enrolment rate among secondary students is lower than among primary students; therefore education partners will engage in awareness-raising and counselling through home visits, parent-teacher associations (PTA), and other forms of community mobilization particularly for Yemeni refugees. The comprehensive implementation of education assistance will ensure all refugees and asylum-seeker children of school age have access to primary and secondary education, leading to improved literacy levels. In 2020, UNHCR will support 4,000 refugees and asylum-seeker children in primary education and 200 in secondary education. UNHCR will also explore provision of tertiary education to students who meet criteria. UNHCR will also consider the provision of additional transportation due to enrolment increases and distances from schools.
In Mogadishu, UNHCR will support school fees directly; awareness-raising and counselling activities through home visits, PTA, and other forms of community mobilization will be reduced. Secondary and tertiary education is partially prioritized, and this will negatively impact on their continuous learning that in the long run promotes skills acquisition for self-reliance.