Somali Culture And Female Education In Selected Women’s Association Centers In Mogadishu Somalia

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the Somali culture and femaleeducation in

Mogadishu, Somalia. This was based on three research objectives: to examine the nature of

cultural practices in Mogadishu Somalia, to determine the status of female Education of

Somalia and to establish the significant relationship between Somali culture and female

education in Somalia. This study adopted a correlational design based on the quantitative

approach. The questionnaire was the main methods used for data collection. For this

purpose, the questionnaire was administered. Quantitative data was analysed based on the

SPSS descriptive statistics and Pearsons correlations test while the interpretive analysis was

used for qualitative data,The findings show that Somali local cultural practices in form of

early marriage, lack of socio-emotional support and discrimination of female children are

the main factors hindering female education attainment in terms of access, enrolment,

retention and literacy natures. On the other hand, Religious gender perspectives have been

rightly interpreted to allow women acquisition of knowledge through either formal or

informal means. It was further revealed that access to education is harder for girls whose

mothers are strong cultural believers according to tradition. Older daughters typically find

they are unable to start or continue school because their domestic labour is needed at home

to replace their mother’s. The study concluded that the nature of female education is still

low and the major factor attributing to this are the cultural practices hence addressing

cultural values and improving female literacy is an essential step towards addressing

female socio-economic development. The study recommends that; the government of

Somalia should organize awareness education campaign of a girl child to the community

and equal opportunities to both boys and girls should be emphasized in school. Practices

like female circumcision, early marriage should be completely banned and strict laws and

punishments should be enforced to protect women from violations. The government

should arrange more scholarships fiom the lower nature to upper or higher institutions like

universities for female students than boys to enable them compete favorably on the labour market with the required qualifications.