Increasing access and participation of girls in education is a state priority.
Consequently, the Government will pursue the following strategies to ensure that more girls are enrolled and retained in Puntland's primary schools:
- Intensification of awareness raising and sensitization campaigns at home, the community level, the school and the world of work.
- Sustained advocacy at the highest level of Government to gain support for and commitment to actions in favor of girls' education.
- Creating an enabling learning environment for girls by ensuring that there are adequate and relevant facilities, such as separate latrines for girls, in all primary schools and putting in place facilities that allow girls some level of privacy.
- Promoting teacher-training programs that prepare teachers to be more sensitive to the needs of girls.
- Review of the primary school curriculum in order to make it more gender-sensitive.
- Removal of all forms of sexism and negative stereotypes from the school curriculum and textbooks.
- Putting in place and enforcing mechanisms to ensure that schools are more protective of girls, including improving security for girls at school as well as during their trips to and from school.
- Introducing/strengthening programs of financial incentives for girls from the most deprived backgrounds as well as other incentives to help retain those enrolled in school.
- Enactment of legislation aimed at safeguarding the educational interests of girls, including a ban on early marriage.
- Recruitment of more female teachers, head teachers and other educational administrators at all levels of the system to provide role models for girls and to provide support for the specific needs and concerns relevant to girls.
- Strengthening representation of women in school and other local, district and management committees.
- Supporting measures that allow girls to get back into school in the event that their schooling was interrupted by early and/or unplanned pregnancies
At the secondary school level, government will continue to adopt similar strategies to attract and retain girls in secondary schools given the major socio-economic benefits of girl's education at this level.