Professional Development Project Abaarso School, Somaliland
Abaarso School of Science and Technology was featured on 60 Minutes, in the New York Times, and at the Clinton Global Initiative when its students became the first in their country in more than 30 years to matriculate to US universities including Harvard, Yale, MIT, Brown, Cornell, and Columbia. Abaarso’s mission was to develop the future leaders of the country and many alumni are graduating from top global universities and returning home to work in the public sector, private sector, and especially within Abaarso’s growing network of schools. This campaign is aimed at funding the professional development that will allow proximal leaders like Abaarso alumni to better manage and grow their school system.
Project Details
While alumni are returning to teach at and to manage schools in the Abaarso Network after pursuing higher education, the majority of them have studied and gained expertise in various non-education subject matters and often have knowledge and skills gaps in education, school management and/or in the particular interest of theirs that brought them back to working at their school.
Abaarso School has thrived on the energy and passion of these young, smart, dedicated alumni and other teachers for the past 14 years. However, for these teachers, who dedicate a huge amount of time, energy and passion to their classes as well as to running extracurriculars, projects, meeting with their advisees and many other activities and duties that contribute to the making of an excellent and holistic school, their financial remuneration is scarce and professional development has exclusively been done in-house.
Such dedicated teachers would highly benefit from excellently run professional development. This would contribute to their own professional and personal development, it would improve the quality of programming at the school and, following this, student experience and learning would similarly be enhanced. Teachers would be inspired to stay at the school for a longer duration, ideally 3-5 years, thus reducing the high turnover in staff that the school is currently experiencing, negatively impacting student-teacher relationships, school culture and, ultimately, student learning outcomes and opportunities.
The Vision
Abaarso School runs student-centred classes and operates as a teacher-centred school. In order to achieve the latter, we want to empower the teachers in many ways. One of these ways is for the teacher to choose their own professional development opportunities, with guidance from their supervisors. Thus with the funds raised, teachers would be able to choose a professional development programme that would most benefit them and their career goals and aspirations.
In order to ensure that the Professional Development programme is community-oriented and giving back to the school, it would be required for the teacher to share out in internal PD sessions amongst Abaarso teachers their learnings from the PD that they chose to undertake and how they have been applying such knowledge and skills to their work at their school in the Abaarso Network.
$120 for Primary School per year includes:
- In-person and online conferences
- In-person and online courses and certifications
- In-person and online trainings
- Summer programmes
Some stories from alumni of Abaarso School
Abdirashid
My name is Abdirashiid Muhumed Hassan. I attended Abaarso School from 2010-2014 and after graduating from Abaarso, I went to EARTH University, Costa Rica, where I obtained a Licentiate Engineering of Agricultural Sciences and Animal Production in 2021. EARTH has a lot of internship opportunities that you can do overseas during your third year and intensive professional experience of community development in the last two years of your studies. I have interned at Burao Academy and contributed curriculum development in 2019 where my interests grew and later when I went back to Costa Rica, I developed a professional project that aimed to teach the local rural community primary schools and environmental association policy.
During my 2019 internship in Somaliland, I came to realize the need for quality education in the country and the limits that engulfed the country internationally; an unrecognized country with almost no international investments, diplomacy and interactions or aid. In other words, Abaarso School is the only accredited school that exists so far and its acceptance rate is 3-4%. I have decided to join Barwaaqo University in January 2022, to give back and contribute to my community. Since 2022, I have been teaching courses such as Environmental Sustainability, Science Education, Civics and Translation and Interpretation. I am the Vice President of Barwaaqo University and this has given me the opportunity of participating in the development of the school curricula, recruiting new students, creating extracurricular activities that serve the needs of the students and beyond. All these responsibilities helped me to grow professionally and personally and I am yearning for more growth and insights in the upcoming years.
Finally, I am very grateful for the Abaarso Network, for the chance they gave me so I can educate Somali women so they can become professionals and in return positively change in their communities.
Warsan
My name is Warsan Mohamed. I attended the Abaarso School of Science and Technology from 2010 to 2014. Later, I pursued my education at Luther College in Iowa, majoring in Elementary Education. Upon completing my degree in 2020, I returned to Somaliland and began my journey with Kaabe Schools, Abaarso Network, as a classroom teacher. With a strong passion for education, it was imperative for me to give back to my community, and Kaabe provided me with the perfect platform to do so, while also fostering my personal growth. After two years of dedicated teaching, I seized the opportunity to further challenge myself and transitioned into a leadership role at Kaabe as a school manager. I have now been part of the network for four years, serving as a school leader for two. Now as the Deputy Head of Kaabe Schools, I have broadened my horizons, actively contributing to the development of the Kaabe community as a whole. As I look ahead, I am eager to continue my journey of impact and service, striving to make a meaningful difference in the lives of students and educators alike.
Ahmed Qaalib
Ahmed joined Abaarso School as a student during the 2011 academic year and finished 4 years of high school plus an additional Gap year. Ahmed is a graduate from West Virginia University and an alumni of Abaarso School. He received a scholarship from MasterCard Foundation to further his studies abroad at the University of West Virginia, where he earned his BS in Civil Engineering. During college, he focused on transportation and environmental engineering. Later in his senior year, joining a program led by the National Science Association to implement autonomous vehicles in West Virginia. In the fall of 2022, Ahmed joined Abaarso as a mathematics teacher and contributed to giving back to the community. That year has been impactful and encouraged the idea of furthering his stay with Abaarso School. In the fall of 2023, Ahmed continued his work as a teacher and Director of Prep School.
In The Classroom - Where Change Begins
