SOMALILAND UNIVERSITIES AND THE INCREASING GRADUATE UNEMPLOYMENT.

By Mohamed Ahmed Abdi Ba’aluul ( waddi12@gmail.com)

Mohamed Ahmed Abdi Ba'alul. 

  Since the last decade, Universities mushroomed in Somaliland. The announcement of a University becomes as easy as opening a new hotel. It will not be a surprising, when you are in an environment where the private sector is outrunning the public one. Taking advantage of the market forces, economic opportunities, policy and legal gaps, Universities are seen as a worthy treasure. As a result of that, the number of private universities is growing within the past ten years.

I do not intend to go through the academic qualities of Universities, since I am not an academician or an experienced professor of that kind. But I preferred to hint on the interrelationship between the higher education and our economic policies. It is apparent that the growing number of Universities is responsive to the overwhelming demands of secondary graduates. Since the existing public universities had no adequate facilities and academic capacity to meet the growing enrollments, Somaliland’s higher education tends to be a profit-making hub for business-minded entrepreneurs. Due to the absence of higher education policies, pre-conditional standards both academically and institutionally, the establishment of Universities become such a fortnight dream that could be attainable within days.

 As the academic philosophies were hijacked by the individual pursuits for profit and market, the government has done nothing to address or to respond to the apparent gaps within the academic structures and the institutional viabilities of our universities. The structural foundations of the so-called private universities could be exposed to question. Because, simply most of them had no immovable addresses since they do their business in a rented and family-designed buildings that are not suitable for academic purposes. Whilst the Ministry of education had no structural and institutional capacities to develop and implement higher education policies necessary for the direction of our universities.

The quality approach is more important than the quantity one, when we stand in the educational arena. So the proliferation of universities, graduation ceremonies, heap of hollow degrees, and chronic oversupply of idle graduates is a pressing challenge that remains to be unaddressed yet. Due to loosened enrollment policies, student-pleasing examination systems, and fee-oriented strategies, less attention have been given to the academic qualities of the students. Lack of adequate vocational schools and police academies could be attributable to the increasing demands of university enrollments.

The role of Universities in the national development

Since the incumbency of president Silanyo, Ministry of Planning had drafted Country’s National Development Plan. If Somaliland government is serious this time to put this five years-long plan in to action, rather than using it as a bait for foreign aids and investments, the role of Universities had to be placed under policy considerations.

The preparation of first coherent development model is the first step of a long and challenging journey. In practical terms, the government should revitalize our local universities to link them to the national plan. This could not be possible, unless we establish a separate institution for the administration of higher education that is empowered with experienced scholars who worked in international universities.

The substance of the National Development Plan centers on the improvement of the economy. The only way we can improve the living standard, is to increase income per capita which could not be possible without increasing productivity, or output per hour worked. In this regard, labour utilization (the number of hours worked per hours in a year) and labour productivity (the output per hour worked) are the real indicators of our production level. For this reason, you can understand the outlook of our economy while the 75% percent of our youth are unemployed as reported in 2011 by UNDP (IRIN 2011). It is a shocking rate, because unofficial estimates of that time showed 65-70 of Somaliland’s 3.5 million people are younger than 30. Also, Studies carried out in December 2010 by the Somaliland National Youth Organization (SONYO), with Oxfam Novib, indicated that out of 800 people interviewed; only 25 percent are employed.

In response to the chronic unemployment which is the depth of our economic obstacle, the government should come up with clear-cut policies and strategies to reduce this difficulty. As long as graduates are the highest rates among the 65 percent of urban unemployment, it is also government’s role to study why the market failed to absorb the products of our local universities. Fact-finding researches that are specifically targeting graduate unemployment would provide the possible options for future solutions.

Somaliland government did little to promote the role of universities in the national productivity. Because it become increasingly embroiled in internal power struggles or underestimated the merits of higher education when it comes to development policies. Although, government interference is not always appreciated in the arena of higher education, but it should not have adopted the “leave universities alone” approach. When you look in to the number of graduates, the stagnant development, the number of grads working at jobs unrelated to their studies, the living standard, you might have a reason to be suspicious about the role of Universities in the national development. There are also extreme parties who hold that Universities are the source of idle, arrogant and empty-pocketed graduates who never dared to do non-desk jobs that society needs. Yes, if the government let the things go that way; our higher education could be ‘a luxury ancillary ‘nice-to-have but not necessary-in part. Because it is difficult to see the contribution that universities are making to the development; In part because of the prolonged economic stagnancy and the high costs associated with the universities.

 We cannot utilize or manage our physical capital properly unless we improve the quality of our human capital. Before we jump in to the question of unemployment, one should assure whether we have produced professionally competent and practically efficient graduates that could translate our physical resources in to economic development. Academic relevance of local graduates in terms of our economic policies or productivity ambitions is also another factor that needs to be placed under a research question.

RECOMMENDATIONS;

1. There should be a clear and agreed policies or strategies in the development model and the role of higher education at national and institutional levels.    
2. Higher Education Commission should be restructured and developed into separate institution with responsibilities and goals established by a parliamentary Act.
3. The state should acknowledge that knowledge drives the growth development. In other words, knowledge should be considered as a key to economic development.
4. It is necessary for the government and universities to place emphasis on investments on the basic healthcare, agricultural production and primary education.
5. Universities should focus on more practical vocational training that will helpfully generate students that can find quicker employment and make difference in our country.
6. The government should improve incentive structure; create policies and implementation at national and institutional levels in order to connect universities more effectively to our development goals.

                                                                      The end

                                                 Mohamed Ahmed Abdi Ba’alul.