Education During the Military Years, 1969-1990
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Education During the Military Years, 1969-1990
With old tribal loyalties taking centre stage in the Somalia of the late 1960s, coupled with an overriding public desire for a change in the way the national government was being run, the military takeover was warmly welcomed by the general population (Lewis, 1994; Lyons & Samatar, 1995).
This type of the sometimes tumultuous reception of new military governments in some developing countries may be explainable by accepting the assumptions of at least one version of political analysis. Arat (1991) while discussing this issue, concludes that the army, which is seen in most countries as the best organized and the most professional public institution, is usually accepted as an alternative to a weak and corrupt state system.
The first years of the military regime were characterized by the formulation as well as the exhortation of a number of so-called ‘revolutionary’ programmes. To start these, the new Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) introduced what it termed as ‘scientific socialism’ to be the country’s guiding ideology (Pestalozza, 1974, Lewis, 1994). That announcement was followed by other rhetorically powerful but not enduring self-help, self-reliance and national military training: programmes (Lewis, 1994).
One major programme that was introduced and implemented by the military government, and indisputably its national development landmark, was the institution of the Latin script for the writing of the Somali language in 1972 (Sheikh-Abdi, 1981). Somali, as a written language, brought with it the Somalization of state functions and administrative sectors, followed by its gradual implementation as the medium of instruction in schools (Pestalozza, 1974). The writing of the Somali language coupled with a mass literacy campaign in the rural areas (Somalia: a country report, 1982) was also responsible for sharply increasing the rate of literacy which immediately went from a dismal 5% to an estimated 55% (Laitin & Samatar, 1987) in the mid-1970s. The 1974/1975 literacy campaign programmes physically involved the mobilization of 100,000 students and civil servants, who were sent ‘to the countryside to live, learn and study with the nation’s large nomadic population for a period of six months or more’ (Sheikh-Abdi, 1981, p. 171). As all of that was complemented by an exponential rise in primary school enrolment, and as the majority of Somalis now write in that script, the writing of the Somali language was one measure of the national development programme that was productive and enduring.
Other advancements on the education front included the expansion of the university institute which was renamed the Somali National University (SNU) in 1970. With pre-state collapse student figures of 4650, SNU established itself as a full-fledged institution of higher learning with 11 faculties: law, economics, agriculture, education, veterinary medicine, medicine, industrial chemistry, geology, languages, journalism, and engineering (International Handbook of Universities, 1993). At the lower levels of schooling, the substantial growth in enrolment was hastening the printing of new materials in Somali, while at the same time, the new language script was being adopted for use in technical and scientific fields (Somalia: a country report, 1982).
These developments in creating a script for the Somali language for the first time in Somalia’s history, were positively responding to the core issue of national identity, social emancipation and the de-emphasizing, at least partially, of one tenet of colonialism, i.e. the colonial language. That will still be the case even if we are cognizant of the world’s current economic and technological interdependence which actually has increased the prominence of English as the undisputed lingua franca of business and politics.
It would also be less sentimental to argue, therefore, that in Somalia, as elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, language is seen as one of the most precious national resources (Laitin, 1976). Laitin (1976) maintains that ‘yet the process of nation-building and modernization in most African states, and very often mass education and political administration are conducted in a language that is foreign to the citizens of these states’ (p. 1). Fanon (1967), sees language as the crucial force that sustains culture and supports the essence of civilizations. To Fanon (1967), ‘a man who has a language consequently possesses ,he world expressed and implied by that language’ (p. 18).
What is conspicuously evident, though, and especially in Somalia’s case, is that sometimes, if not always, necessity overrides any prevailing nationalist ideology. That was practically the case at the SNU where ‘given the comparative lack of reading and research materials in Somali, and the relatively few Somalis with graduate degrees, most university courses were conducted in Italian’ (Somalia: a country report, 1982). The most important exception in this regard was the College of Education where English was the medium of instruction.
The written Somali, despite the premium it was placing on social development, did not dissuade the military government from succumbing to Somalia’s chronic ailment: tribalism. As the euphoria over the revolution’s ‘glorious’ objectives was replaced by combined economic and political difficulties, the military regime turned to clan manipulating and to the classic tactics of divide and rule (Lyons & Samatar, 1995). In hindsight, it may now be sound to see that as the beginning of Somalia’s journey to state collapse and national disintegration which were both fully realized in early 1991.
This type of the sometimes tumultuous reception of new military governments in some developing countries may be explainable by accepting the assumptions of at least one version of political analysis. Arat (1991) while discussing this issue, concludes that the army, which is seen in most countries as the best organized and the most professional public institution, is usually accepted as an alternative to a weak and corrupt state system.
The first years of the military regime were characterized by the formulation as well as the exhortation of a number of so-called ‘revolutionary’ programmes. To start these, the new Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) introduced what it termed as ‘scientific socialism’ to be the country’s guiding ideology (Pestalozza, 1974, Lewis, 1994). That announcement was followed by other rhetorically powerful but not enduring self-help, self-reliance and national military training: programmes (Lewis, 1994).
One major programme that was introduced and implemented by the military government, and indisputably its national development landmark, was the institution of the Latin script for the writing of the Somali language in 1972 (Sheikh-Abdi, 1981). Somali, as a written language, brought with it the Somalization of state functions and administrative sectors, followed by its gradual implementation as the medium of instruction in schools (Pestalozza, 1974). The writing of the Somali language coupled with a mass literacy campaign in the rural areas (Somalia: a country report, 1982) was also responsible for sharply increasing the rate of literacy which immediately went from a dismal 5% to an estimated 55% (Laitin & Samatar, 1987) in the mid-1970s. The 1974/1975 literacy campaign programmes physically involved the mobilization of 100,000 students and civil servants, who were sent ‘to the countryside to live, learn and study with the nation’s large nomadic population for a period of six months or more’ (Sheikh-Abdi, 1981, p. 171). As all of that was complemented by an exponential rise in primary school enrolment, and as the majority of Somalis now write in that script, the writing of the Somali language was one measure of the national development programme that was productive and enduring.
Other advancements on the education front included the expansion of the university institute which was renamed the Somali National University (SNU) in 1970. With pre-state collapse student figures of 4650, SNU established itself as a full-fledged institution of higher learning with 11 faculties: law, economics, agriculture, education, veterinary medicine, medicine, industrial chemistry, geology, languages, journalism, and engineering (International Handbook of Universities, 1993). At the lower levels of schooling, the substantial growth in enrolment was hastening the printing of new materials in Somali, while at the same time, the new language script was being adopted for use in technical and scientific fields (Somalia: a country report, 1982).
These developments in creating a script for the Somali language for the first time in Somalia’s history, were positively responding to the core issue of national identity, social emancipation and the de-emphasizing, at least partially, of one tenet of colonialism, i.e. the colonial language. That will still be the case even if we are cognizant of the world’s current economic and technological interdependence which actually has increased the prominence of English as the undisputed lingua franca of business and politics.
It would also be less sentimental to argue, therefore, that in Somalia, as elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, language is seen as one of the most precious national resources (Laitin, 1976). Laitin (1976) maintains that ‘yet the process of nation-building and modernization in most African states, and very often mass education and political administration are conducted in a language that is foreign to the citizens of these states’ (p. 1). Fanon (1967), sees language as the crucial force that sustains culture and supports the essence of civilizations. To Fanon (1967), ‘a man who has a language consequently possesses ,he world expressed and implied by that language’ (p. 18).
What is conspicuously evident, though, and especially in Somalia’s case, is that sometimes, if not always, necessity overrides any prevailing nationalist ideology. That was practically the case at the SNU where ‘given the comparative lack of reading and research materials in Somali, and the relatively few Somalis with graduate degrees, most university courses were conducted in Italian’ (Somalia: a country report, 1982). The most important exception in this regard was the College of Education where English was the medium of instruction.
The written Somali, despite the premium it was placing on social development, did not dissuade the military government from succumbing to Somalia’s chronic ailment: tribalism. As the euphoria over the revolution’s ‘glorious’ objectives was replaced by combined economic and political difficulties, the military regime turned to clan manipulating and to the classic tactics of divide and rule (Lyons & Samatar, 1995). In hindsight, it may now be sound to see that as the beginning of Somalia’s journey to state collapse and national disintegration which were both fully realized in early 1991.