2. College of Education

Education is the key to any nation’s future. No development can take place without an educated, and skilled workforce. According to the Ministry of Education statistics (see appendix 1) a total of 106,480 students are enrolled in both public and private schools in the current Scholastic Year 2003/4. The number of teachers serving is 2,590, out of which only 241 have university degrees. This means a teacher/student ratio of 1:41, and a graduate teacher/student ratio of only1:442. Both ratios are extremely low and unacceptable. Even if we want to achieve a very modest target of graduate teacher/student ratio of 1:100 (i.e one graduate teacher for every three classes), we would need to train 824 teachers just to meet our immediate need. The reason why there is such a small number of graduate teachers is that the only college, Lafoole (Somali National University) which trained teachers has been closed for the past 13 years due to the civil war. The aim of the department of education is to fill this gap and produce the qualified teachers we need for today and tomorrow.