SOMALIA’S CURRENT HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM, CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD: A SCOPING REVIEW

Abstract

Abstract:

The education sector of Somalia faces many challenges to increasing the quality of higher education and this negatively impacts the development of skilled human resources and the internationalization of higher education. The scoping review’s aim is to analyze the current gap in standard education policy and strategy framework and suggest the way forward to overcome the current challenges. Studies related to the current higher education system, challenges, and the way forward were searched from eight resourceful databases. The search involved articles published between January 2013 to February 2023 published in the English language. We used Cochran’s Q χ2 and the I2 test statistics to check heterogeneity among the studies. A total of 72 studies were selected and 12 articles were selected for this scoping review. The vast majority of the studies were from developed countries. We included three original articles, four narrative documents review papers, and one grounded theory paper in our scoping review. The majority of the articles describe the higher education challenges and mentioned the gap in higher education policies and regulations. Synthesis original articles focused on the lack of uniform policy, research facilities, lack of effective curricula guidelines, and lack of effort of internationalization of higher education while narrative documents reviews paper lack of qualified staff and quality of education, Poor infrastructure, standard education policy, universal education curriculum, and lack of accountability of education sector. There is no information in the synthesis articles and reports about the education sector staff recruitment process, how to ensure the quality of education, and the role of civil society to increase the quality of higher education. Universal curriculum, legal framework, and coordination between federal and state governments were found to be effective ways to improve the current education sector of the country. Staff quality improvement programs remain the main challenges in Somalia’s higher education and innovation as well.