Somalia to introduce Swahili into their national curriculum

Somalia must introduce Swahili, Lingua Franca from East Africa, in its national curriculum, the president said.

English is used as a language language language for most subjects across the country in secondary schools, with Arabic being the only other mandatory second language currently taught.

But President Hasan Sheikh Mohamud said Swahili should also be taught at schools and universities, making a declaration at a summit of the East African Community (EAC), which takes place in the capital, Mogadishu.

Somalia has officially joined the regional eight -nation trading block last year with the intention of strengthening economic growth after three decades of war.

With more than 200 million speakers, Swahili is one of the 10th most widely spoken languages ​​in the world.

“Universities in the country, especially the Somali National University, should focus more on the development of Swahili language, which is the language of East Africa,” said President Mohamud.

“Acceptance of Swahili is important for our integration into the region,” he said.

Education Minister Farah Sheikh Abdulkadir added that the government has great ambitions to accept Swahili across the country.

“We want to see Swahili to become a language for communication, trade and learning – even to replace English during our next conference,” he told EAC gathering.

Swahili dialects are already spoken along the southern shore of Somalia and the language has been used broadly throughout the country in recent years -one of the consequences of the Civil War that broke out in 1991 and brought decades of instability and more recently jihadist violence.

Hundreds of thousands of people have sought asylum over the border in Kenya, many of them continue to learn how to speak Swahili – especially those who have gone through the Kenyan education system.

As the situation in Somalia has been stabilizing somewhat in recent years, some of these free Swahili speakers have returned or have connections at home, while the presence of African Union troops has also seen the language grow.

These soldiers, many of the East African nations, have been located since 2007 with Swahili often their common language.

Until 2016, Arabic was the language of training in Somalia in junior schools and English at secondary and higher levels.

Now the elementary school’s National curriculum is taught in Somalia with the curriculum remaining in English for higher education – and Arabic used in Madrassas or Islamic schools.