Somalia

Many attempts have been made to address the problem of illiteracy in Somalia both before and after the civil war. In 1957 a UNESCO-funded technical assistance program permitted a group of teachers to go out into the Somali rural areas to organize a literacy campaign. The teachers recruited only 20 students and taught them in Italian, one day a week, for three months. This worked only during the dry season; when the rains came, the students disappeared, returning to the call of their pastoral way of life. Coupled with the nomadic lifestyle of the Somalis, the lack of a written Somali language posed a major problem for literacy training. Adult Somalis faced the daunting task of learning how to read and write in a foreign language. Few welcomed the opportunity. Adult education, however, gained a new life after the adoption of the Latin script for the Somali language in 1972. In March 1973, President Said announced a "cultural revolution" that would bring literacy to all Somalis by 1975. During the 1974-1975 school year, secondary schools were closed and students and volunteers were sent to rural areas to teach adults how to read. At the end of the campaign, the government claimed that nearly 2 million Somalis had learned to read and write, a significant number for a country of 6 million people at the time. A permanent Literacy Campaign became part of Somali life after the Rural Development Campaign, and many adult education evening classes were established to continue the vision. The National Adult Education Center, a branch of the Ministry of Education, was responsible for the implementation of adult education. The civil war disrupted the attempt to educate Somali adults. In the post civil war Somalia, private efforts are being made to continue adult education both on-site and through distance learning.