| dc.description.abstract | Universal primary education is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be reached by 2015. Somalia has one of the lowest primary school enrollment rates in Africa. The main objective of this paper was to investigate the determinants of primary school enrollment of boys and girls in Somalia. The study focused on primary school enrollment of children aged between 6 and 14 years using the Somalia 2006 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Data (MICS). Enrollment status was modeled using probit model. The explanatory variables are: child age, parental education, family size, wealth, regions, area of residence and time taken to fetch water.
The analysis separated boys and girls into sub-samples. The probit results show that the child’s age, parent’s education, wealth, regions and area of residence are important determinants of primary school enrollment for boys and girls in Somalia. The findings indicate that the chance for child to be enrolled increases with age at decreasing rate. Wealth has positive influence on the chance for child to be enrolled. The results further show that the wealth effect is larger for girls than boys. The results show that children whose father and mother have no education are less likely to be enrolled. But father’s literacy was found to have greater effect on boy’s enrollment than girl’s enrollment. In contrast mother’s literacy had larger effect for girls than boys. The probit results also found regional disparities in enrollment. Children from North West and North East had higher chance to be enrolled than children from South central.
Policy interventions focusing on increasing adult literacy and income of households in rural and urban areas of Somalia have potential to increase primary school enrollment. Targeting of educational resources allocation to the regions with low enrollments should be enhanced. | en |
