EDUCATION
DANDOR believes education is key to reducing poverty and spurring socioeconomic development in the society. The main objective of Dandor education program is to increase access to quality primary education for Out of School Children (OOSC) in vulnerable pastoral communities in Somalia.
General situation in Somalia
Pastoral communities form a large proportion of the population in East and Horn of Africa. In Somalia over 70%of the population is pastoral entirely dependent on livestock and demands movement in search of pasture. This poses a challenge for the provision of basic services, particularly in an environment where these are in any case only available to a minority within the region, mostly in urban areas, and there of poor quality. Pastorals and especially nomadic pastorals are living at the margins of society. They face serious threats to their livelihood in terms of recurring drought, reduced pasture and competition over land with agriculturalists, increased insecurity/conflict, and reduced/unpredictable markets for their livestock.
Throughout Somalia, educational institutions and services has collapsed, subsequently, host communities, IDPs, and Returnees Refugee are struggling to find out education opportunities for their unfortunate children. Education thus remains a chronic need in the absence of school buildings, furniture and classroom equipment and with many schools being in a non-functional state. In addition to that, there is human resource scarcity in regard to the public and private schools, because most of the professional teachers has either affected negatively by the wars or displaced from the country.
DANDOR has its own share of the above problems and continues to face constrains on the regional development programmes. However the most generous estimates suggest that only between 14 and 17% of all school-age children are enrolled in school, mostly in the early grades and only 35 percent of pupils are girls.
