Civil War in Somalia had produced not only warlords, Union of Islamic Courts, Alshabab, Alqaeda, ISIS, but also fraudulent education merchants engaged in dangerous schemes to exploit mercilessly parents and their kids for business profit. These fraudsters give out education certificates to youth who can’t read and write any legible literature. “Students” are required only to pay their fees to pass exams. Whatever subjects they try to imitate teaching, civic education isn’t one of them. Their schemes don’t produce Somali personality. The schemes are spoiling generation after generation to produce illiterate population, “graduates” of the fraudulent education schemes throughout Somalia.
Parents of these kids have to choose between two evils:
1. To leave them to their own devices with the potential of becoming juvenile delinquents, perish in the high seas looking for better opportunities overseas, radicalized and recruited by extremists.
2. Or to allow these kids to fall victims to the fraudulent education schemes in their own country.
Since youth “graduates” from fraudelent systems are miseducated, on the top of lacking labour skills, they are hardly expected to get jobs in the limited labour market here in Somalia. At this stage, parents are still in a dilemma of what to do with these young “graduates” . Here start parents’ struggles to seek job openings for these ill-prepared youth through cronyism, nepotism and corruption. While engaged in this process, they try to secure loans to lease vehicles used as taxis called Dhaweeye (UBER) to keep these youth busy and out of trouble.
Somalia’s fraudulent education cartels have been attracting education crooks as well from neighboring East African countries like Uganda and Ethiopia. But, you would rarely see Somali college graduates from Kenya for they have high standards in their education system and strict admission requirements. In Uganda, these fake education crooks had established the so-called ” Kampala International University” specifically deviced to take advantage of the misery of Somali youth looking for better education overseas. Students need only to register there and pay tuition fees. Getting certificate is guaranteed.
To illustrate this point, one day, a few years ago, I received a phone call from a Somali man in Garowe, Puntland. He informed me that he was with a Ugandan friend from “Kampala International University” visiting Puntland, and they wanted to see me. I told them about the place to meet, which was a hotel lobby. The Ugandan identified himself as “Ahmed”, an unlikely name for his obvious African features. To make a long story short, “Ahmed” wanted Warsame Digital Media to place an advertisement for his “University”. I asked him what subjects they were teaching there. His answer was stunning. Among the subjects he told me that they teach included “Bachelor of Surgery”. In conclusion, I asked him to show me the curriculum and fields of studies of “Kampala International University”. He promised to come back next morning to show me the literature. He never returned.
(This article has been updated since posting.)
WDM SOMALIA MONITOR
October 5, 2022 at 8:34 am
Reaction to the article by one Somali scholar. Take a read:
“Dear
This true. And worst, some schools and even higher education in Somalia have started selling education like expired food and medicine imported into the country. We also have in Puntland such business people.
At the entrance gate of the University of South Africa, the following maxim was posted for contemplation:
“Destroying any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long-range missiles. It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing the students to cheat in the examinations.”
* Patients die at the hands of such doctors.
* Buildings collapse at the hands of such engineers.
* Money is lost at the hands of such economists and accountants.
* Humanity dies at the hands of such religious scholars.
* Justice is lost at the hands of such judges.
“The collapse of education is the collapse of the nation.”
Who is responsible for ensuring the private education in Puntland should be set in a way with controlled quality?
How has Puntland failed to set a higher education commission? These are questions that we should ask ourselves”.
WDM SOMALIA MONITOR
October 5, 2022 at 10:05 am
A father of two daughters told WDM his daughters had graduated from one of the so-called Universities in Puntland, one of whom as a doctor of medicine. He decided to send them to Camuud University in Borama for further studies. When the daughters reached Camuud, the University Administration discovered that girls couldn’t enroll because they didn’t have primary training in English language.
WDM SOMALIA MONITOR
October 5, 2022 at 6:16 pm
A Somali researcher put it in this way, in reaction to the article on poor education in Somalia:
“Equally most parents are careless as long as thier chokdren [children] are enrolled to duch sham universities. I also found that many, if not most, students do not care about the quality of education as long as they can eventually claim they got university degree. I can tell you a lot more based on my experience but time is not on my side”.