EVALUATING THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN VARIOUS INDICATORS OF SCHOOL QUALITY AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES IN SOMALIA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PUNTLAND STATE

Purpose : the aim of this quantitative study is to highlight the major obstacles associated with the association between various indicators of school quality and educational outcomes that hinder adequate primary education from taking its foothold in Somalia at large and the federal state of Puntland in particular. Methodology: This study used three retrospective data sources from the previous six school years, as well as raw data on the direct and indirect costs of primary education and their impact upon parents' affordability to send their children to school in the first place, which were collected from 27 primary schools using a cross-sectional approach. The study used descriptive and inferential statistics: compare mean ± SD, t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results : In each considered scholastic year, on average, 30% of the population reached school-year and 167,439 enrolled, and of that, only a mere 5% qualified for the final year-eight exam. The outcome revealed a massive drop out along the way. Of the two types of primary education mise en scene, Alternative Basic Education (ABE) and Primary & Integrated Qur’anic Schools (PIQS), the parents enrolled their children in the latter on a 1:17 ratio. The enrollment rate of female and male pupils in the last six scholastic years has been 55% and 45%, respectively. The public-school regions examined were found to have been over three-fold higher than the private ones, though this doesn’t have an effect on the cost of education per capita. As for the distribution of schools in the nine regions, there is a significant disparity among them, ranging from 32±1 to 128±11. The teacher-student ratio was found to be 36:1±3. The overall average number of teachers over six school-years was found to have been 4,420±458, out of which only 14% (609±104) stood as females, and that is below the 50% sub-Saharan Africa benchmark. Finally, the school cost per child/student in each month has been observed and found to have been $29±7. Consequently, the overall cost for every child per year becomes $234.224 against a background of low family income.


INTRODUCTION
The history of modern formal education in Somalia dates back to the UN Trusteeship administration between 1950 and 1960, and was tasked with preparing and educating Somali people to be able to govern their country once they gained independence, Article five (5) of the Trusteeship Agreement, provided for the establishment of modern education systems for Somali children and adult learners.Subsequently, in the 1961/62 school-year, 18,000 students enrolled in various schools throughout Somalia (Abdi, 1998).However, the civilian and military governments accelerated and gave due precedence to the education system, but everything changed when the central government collapsed in early 1991.Among the United Nation's millennium development goals (MDG's) was the completion of universal primary education (UPE) by 2015 as mass education and the supply of an educated labour force, socio-economic growth, and the reduction of regional disparity are intertwined (UNESCO, 2020; Chimombo, 2005).According to Harvey & Green (1993) quality is defined 'as expressional, as perfection, as fitness for purpose, as value for money as transformative'.Therefore, levels of student achievement in early education and institutes' excellence and efficiency as well as the relationship between school quality and socio-economic disadvantage in raising literacy are hitherto pressing issues in the developing countries (Reddy and Kanjee, 2011).There are significant indications that inadequate school quality accounts for low levels of literacy and achievement among developing countries children (Fuller, 1986, Heyneman, andLoxley, 1983).In addition, the effects of a child's pre-school and socioeconomic background are important factors that could make a considerable transformation in a child's achievement (Fuller, 1986).By the same token, the expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions (Hanushek and Lavy, 1994;Harbison and Hanshek, 1992;Hanushek, 2006).Rather, the intellectual proficiencies of the population are impressively akin to personal incomes, to the leveling up of incomes, and to economic development (Hanushek and Woessmann, 2007).
Primary education in industrialized countries is gradually shifting away from a traditional European model based on social studies, math, and numeracy studies, school substructure and pedagogical resources, teacher features (education level, guidance, familiarity, sex, and ethnicity), and school setup (student-teacher ratio, teaching practices, devolved administration, and educator agreements and working environments) on student enrollment and learning into human growth.Thus, under the new curriculum, daily life skills are emphasized in the lessons for training, which in turn will have potentially transformative effects if equally cascaded into the entire developing countries, from impoverished to wealthy (Majumdar, A, 2020; Devkota and Bagale, 2015).
Most developing countries have not achieved the required level of school excellence in terms of infrastructure, facilities, materials, curriculum-cum-syllabus, teacher-student ratio, and knowledge gaps of school staff to methodically evaluate children and parents' school results.It is differentially due to a lack of intention on the part of respective developing country governments, as well as social, religious, and economic issues in those countries (Otike and Kiruki, 2011; Majumdar, A, 2020; Bowen & Powers, 2005; Devkota and Bagale, 2015; Setiawan, 2018)).As a result, while the UN's attempt to establish a global model of education through free universal education has been successful, it has not given equal weight to various factors such as quality education, classroom attendance, professional development, and financial reward, and it has not received equal success from all developing countries.Thus, success has been divided based on a country's economic structure, such as lower-income countries, middleincome countries, and high-income countries.It is difficult to achieve success in primary education without economic stability or a strong educational budget.
As far as the Somali setting is concerned, after thirty years of civil war, a situation exacerbated by the global pandemic exists in a fashion deemed more severe than their sub-Saharan counterparts to the least.To be more specific, the term "school quality" is frequently used to assess, among other things, government investment strategies, student performance and achievement,Textbooks, class number, laboratories and teacher quality, which is linked to their salary level, have been revealed to reliably impact upon student attainment (Fuller, 1986).Whereas, Glewwe and Kremer (2006) expressed restraint to make a sweeping statement improving school quality may not be through snowballing inputs that hinges on teachers or text books, but preferably through technologies that circumvent the setback of weak schooling such as computers and radio instruction.In a concise way, Hewett et al (2008) categorized school quality into four components: (1) educational facilities such as desks, teaching manuals, text books, as well as the certification, knowledge and obligation of educators, (2) time devoted to instruction such as length of school day, teacher absenteeism, and student teacher ratio; (3) teaching space subtleties and didactic methods including teacher treatment and sustenance of students, chastisement and errands (4) Disparities in teacher stances and behavior/perception, such as harassment, intimidation, and violence against boys and girls in schools.
The fulcrum of United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 is to realize equity in education provision to the degree that no one is left behind.The desire to achieve equity in education delivery to the extent that no one is forsaken by redirecting the thrust of educational financing towards poor and civil war-overloaded countries such as Somalia so that they will have adequate financial resources to meet SDG 4 (Chikoko and Mthembu, 2021).As Walker et al (2019) argue, basic/primary education is an extremely important means by which the poor confront increasing inequalities and generate decent earnings for themselves.Predominantly, in countries like Somalia that are emerging from protracted civil war, education is considered critical for individual poverty alleviation, the attainment of gender equity, women's emancipation, and societal economic growth.In addition, the school is the main learning and socializing institution outside the family.Unlike the pre-civil war status of schooling whereby the state guaranteed free education and subsequent job guarantee policy (Farah, 2020), presently large sway of children in Somalia going to school and getting a quality education is still an aspiration.And, its mainly to do with parents who are unable to financially support their children's education, poverty, accessibility to school, security matters and social norms that inhibit for the girls to go to school, children in nomadic/pastoralist life are in constant move and frequently deprived of their rights to an education etc. (Unicef, 2021).Very little research has been conducted on the influence of the above factors that effect on school efficiency, achievement levels of students in Puntland state of Somalia or any other part of the country for that matter.Consequently, the work here ventures into the state of primary education to identify factors that hinder the endeavor of increasing school efficiency for the good of student attainment based on the past six years school characteristics that consistently influence performance, and deduce how best to improve the quality of schools is discussed within nine regions of Puntland federal member state of Somalia.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF PRIMARY EDUCATION OF PUNTLAND STATE OF SOMALIA
The goal of the work given here is to promote informed discussion among educators, policymakers, and others interested in educational reform in Somalia in general and Puntland State in particular, as guided by learning and teaching theories.In this way, a theory assists policymakers and educators in making informed decisions regarding learning design, development, and delivery by identifying the connections between education reform and practice, as well as the underlying social, economic, and political theories (Wilson and Peterson, 2006;Bransford et al., 2006).
On that note, Primary education is the first level of formal education in Somalia, followed by secondary and tertiary education (Abdi, 1998).With the exception of fast-tracked Alternative Basic Education (ABE) in which students complete primary education in five years, primary education consists of lower and upper primary, where it takes four years each to complete (MoE&HE, 2020).Primary school education is proffered to students in the age brackets of 6 to 14. ABE describes flexible programme of study which is built essentially to answer the issue of accessibility and participation for children unable an admittance to formal education in the arrangement its presently offered (Salad, 2018), while Primary & Integrated Quranic Schools (PIQS) is the eight years conventional primary education with extra qur'anic lessons (MOE&HE 2016/20).

Research aims
The aim of this quantitative study is to highlight the major educational snags significantly hindering the take-off of better primary education in Somalia in general and the federal member state of Puntland in particular.The research is a longitudinal study being implemented in primary schools in nine districts of Puntland aimed at eight school-years to explain the levels and delivery of primary education for all school-reached children as well as to evaluate the association between various indicators of school quality and educational outcomes.Indicators such as enrollment, dropouts, gender parity, candidates for final exam, rate of promotion to secondary school, student-teacher ratio, class-teacher ratio, school-teacher ratio and schoolregion ratio, male and female teacher ratio, and finally the educational cost and its effect on parents' affordability to send their children to school in the first place.We then describe the research setting, the study design and the samples, with the results and recommendation/conclusions following.An improved education system will directly affect a country's ability to achieve its full economic potential (Otike andKiruki 2011, Setiawan, 2018).The education system in Somalia is largely privatized, and the purpose of this study is to promote the concept of free basic education and achieved the required level of school excellence in terms of infrastructure, facilities, materials, curriculum-cum-syllabus, teacher-student ratio, and gaps exists on the part different stockholder such as government and school management to evaluate children's school needs assessment and results in post-conflict Somalia in accordance with the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (UNESCO, 2020).That created knowledge gap for students to progress through primary education into secondary school (Unicef (2021).

METHODOLOGY
There are three retrospective data sources used in this study.We abridged each of these in table format in the main body of the paper and in Appendices Ia & Ib.The Ministry of Planning, Economic Development and International Cooperation (MoPEDIC) and Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoE&HE) statistics year books of Puntland 2014/20 annual reports data has been employed in the study.Correspondingly, during the study, secondary data from the last six school-years was also utilized to gauge the standard of primary education in Puntland since the 2014/15 scholastic year.Descriptive as well as inferential statistics, compare mean ± SD, ttest and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were applied in the study.In addition, to assess the existing context of primary education in Puntland, raw data was collected from 27 primary schools by means of a cross-sectional approach.In all of the nine provinces in Puntland, three primary schools were visited in each region.During the data collection, it was focused on the direct and indirect costs of primary education.The findings are presented in a logical sequence of tables (in the body and appendices), numbers, figures, and statistical inferences that address the goals and objectives, discussion, and recommendations, as well as for potential users of the findings.

RESULTS
According to the demographic status of Puntland built on the school reach, enrolled and final exam candidates for the investigated school-years (2014/15 to 2019/20), Ministry of planning, economic development and international cooperation education statistics year books (MoPEDIC, 2014/20), based on the population estimation survey (2014) pg 15, and the estimated population growth rate of 2.75, 2.78, 2.82, 2.84, 2.87 and 2.9% (Worldometeres of 2014/20 ), the total population growth per year has been calculated.Out of that, the number of children who reached school age has been subsequently inferred to be 30% of the total population between the 2014 and 2020 school years.Also, affirmed upon the MoE&HE statistical year book (2014/20s), the number of pupils enrolled for the respective school-year and the figures for the number of pupils who completed primary education and qualified for the final grade eight examination were also tabulated in the study (Table 1).1).The number of enrolled and the final examination candidates has been collected from the respective educational statistics year books by Puntland Ministry of Education and Higher education (MoE&HE 2014/15 to 2019/20).When observed the rate of enrollment, there was a great deal of disparity between the average registered number of children for a specific school-year and the number of school-reached children in the six school-years examined, with a significant level of 1.8x10 -8 @ 95% confidence intervals (CI).Of the two types of primary education environment in Puntland state of Somali, ABE and P&IQS, the number of school-reached students enrolled for the respective programs was also analyzed, and found highly significant number (P-value: 1.8x10-5 @ 95% Cl) of the parents, almost 1:17 ratio, showed tendency towards, thus enrolled their children, the later (Table : 2).When tested the number students enrolled for particular school-year in six schoolyears examined in the study, and those endeavored to reach year eight hence qualified for the generalized primary education examination, the result revealed prodigious disparity with a significance of 1.2x10-5 @ 95% CI (table : 2).Almost all enrolled with the average of 167439±22292 fall through along the way, and according to data supplied by ministry of education (MoE&HE) statistics year books, 2014/20) only 5% with the average of 9018±1397 The enrollment rate of female and male pupils at primary school reached children in the last six scholastic years, specifically stipulated are the number of students enrolled in every school-year and Percentage distribution of boy and girl students.Out of the total number registered in the respective school-years, 55% (91,609± 11350) were male students, while 45% (75,831± 11008) were female.Statistically, the average enrollment rate of girls is slightly but significantly lower than that of boys, with a P-value of 3.5x10-2 @ 95% CI (Table 2). 2 Two ways t-test, assuming unequal variances, has been carried out for the disparity between the total Primary & IQS enrolled and ABE enrolled in Puntland for the years between 2014/15 and 2019/20 school-year with a p-value of 1.8X10 -5 @ 95 CI.Similarly, when tested the number enrolled for specific academic year against the students reached final examination of the primary education, it has been found there is also a highly significant difference between them with a P-value of 1.2X10 -5 @ 95 CI.Also, the school reached Vs enrolled was tested with P-value of1.8X10 -8 @ 95 CI.

School-Year
Table 3: Male and female enrollment trends of primary education students for the last 6 years.it has been found that the average number of girls (75,831, 45%) enrolled is significantly lower that of the boys (91,609, 55%) with p-value 3.5x10 -2 @ 95% CI.Source3 .
As aforesaid, the overall average number of students who completed intermediate or grade 8 school-year and were ready to sit for the final generalised examination became 9018 ±1397, out of which 43% were girls, and that is not significantly different from the boys, with a P-Value of 5.5x10 -2 @ 95% CI.The education statistics yearbooks (2019/2020) data examined also specify the pass rate, eligibility for secondary education, and the percentage distribution of boys and girls as well.When tested the average total number of boys promoted against that of girls for the respective school-year intended for the six years assessed, there has been no significant difference between them with a P-value of 6x10 -2 @ 95% CI (Table 4).Another important aspect to observe is the magnitude of the dropouts who failed, at any rate, to get their seats in the first year of secondary school.On average, only 493± 310 out of 8,525±1440 children failed to register themselves into year one secondary school classes for that particular school-year.This means those registered for form one secondary school are more highly significant than those who never register for themselves, with a P-value of 7.98x10 -5 @ 95% CI (Table 4).Another important aspect examined was the male and female dropout rate, which was unsuccessful in featuring in form one secondary school classes.And, as a result, 262±133 of boys failed to turn up to the classes, while 231±182 girls didn't feature either.That means the boys' dropout is not significantly different from the girls, with a P-value of 7.5X10 -1 @ 95% CI (Table 5).

Schoo l-Year
Total candidates for final exam Table 5: Grade 8 final centralised examination male and female dropouts.The boy's dropout are not significant different from girls with P-value of 7.5X10 -1 @ 95% CI (Table 5).Source 5 .
As far as teachers' trends are concerned, the overall average number of teachers over six schoolyears was found to have been 4,420±458.Out of that, 3812±394 were male, whereas a mere 609±104 (14%) became female teachers.And, statistically, the proportion of female teachers is highly significantly lower than their male counterparts, with a P-value of 1.3X10 -6 @ 95% CI (Figure 1; Table 6 in the appendix Ia).
Figure1: Number of male and female teachers per school-year.Out of the overall average teachers, 3812±394 were male, whereas mere 609±104 (13%) became female teachers with a P-value of 1.3X10 -6 @ 95% CI (Table1 in the appendix Ia) When the supply of teachers per region in the nine regions with reference to school-years was examined in a blocked design two-way ANOVA without replications, there had been great deal of disparity in the distribution of teachers in a given region with a P-value of 9.5x10 -25 @ 95% CI.After tested the teacher distribution in the six school-years considered in the study with one way ANOVA, there was no significant difference among the teachers with a P-value of 9.6x10 -1 @ 95% CI (Figure 2 and 3 respectively).
As for the average distribution of schools in the nine regions with reference to seven schoolyears is concerned (32±1, 128±11, 27±4, 23±3, 96±11, 122±37, 106±14, 54±4, 66±4), ANOVA two-factor without replication was performed to test if there are significant differences among the regions in a given year.Blocking is employed to further reduce the level of unexplained variations with the second factor (regions).The influence of additional factors (off the tarmac road, the salary variations of the teachers, the number of students and schools) could be controlled by blocking them away.The F calculated is greater than the F critical with a P-value of 5.4x10 -19 @ 95% CI.That means at least two of the nine regions of the six school-years are significantly different from each other.In order to identify which region is significantly different from the other, post hoc test was performed to ascertain the level of significance between each pair of the tested six academic/school-years, and the result was that all regions showed a statistical significance difference between them except the Bari and Mudug regions (Figure 4).ANOVA two-factor without replication was performed to test if there were significant differences among the regions in a given year.With a P-value of 5.4x10 -19 @ 95% CI, the calculated F is greater than the critical F.
The number of public and private schools in the land has been first analysed as far as the number of school-years and their distribution in the nine regions is concerned, and secondly, if there are distinctions between the two to the extent of learning expenses per child.On that account, the disparity between the two types of schools in so far as the number of school-years has been tested, and found that on average, the public ones are three-fold higher in number (485±114 and 168±80 respectively) than the private ones, with p-value 3.5x10 -4 with @95 CI (Figure 5).

Figure 5:
The total number of public and private schools in the nine regions of Puntland State of Somalia ± SE (Table 6 of the appendix Ia).The significance was for the difference between public and private schools, with a p-value of 3.5x10 -4 @ 95 CI.
To get the bigger picture, the overall averages of public and private schools throughout the nine regions was tested with a mean of 54 ± 32 and 19±21 respectively ( Two Sample t-Test Assuming Unequal Variances was performed and found out that there is significant gap (P-value 8.14x10 -10 @ 95% CI) between the number of schools types (Figure 6). is a significant difference between the regions insofar as the fees is concerned, and the result was that there is no significant difference among the fees levied upon students by the school authorities of the respective regions, with P-value of 2.31x10 -1 @ 95 CI.
Figure 7: school fees per student on each month, cost of transportations, fees for midterm and final exams and cost of text and exercise books per items (all in dollars as it's the sole tender note for transaction in Puntland).The average school cost per child per region has been calculated as $29± 7. ANOVA two-Factor Without Replication was used to test on the variations among fees per region and found that there is no significant difference among the fees levied upon students by the school authorities of respective regions, with P-value of 2.31x10 -1 @ 95 CI.

DISCUSSION
Access to basic education continues to be a matter of serious concern in Somalia in general and Puntland in particular.The universalisation as well as quantitative expansion of the system in terms of the attainment of the ambition on affordability (direct and indirect cost) for parents to send household children based on ostensible build up in enrolment-ratios, decreased dropouts, student-teacher ratios, class-student ratios, literacy rate and other infrastructural facilities appears to be very slow over the best part of the last thirty years: since the demise of the central government.From the outset, although the Puntland administration regulates schools, government owned or otherwise, throughout the nine regions studied, it doesn't provide free education to the children, thus rendering at least the direct cost of education unaffordable.As a result, affirmed by the MoE&HE statistical year books (2014/20s), the 30% school reached children and the enrolment rate disproportion is astronomically huge.Thus, poor enrolment rate and the access of education, particularly vulnerable section of the society, primes to put a question mark on government role and the ways it measures affordability index and financial constraints against background of the Puntland average family expenditure (though a differential range) of meager 288.5/month per family, it could be one of the main reasons for non-enrolment in schools, and for the parents find hard to keep their child in the school throughout the 8 years period of primary education (Shah, 1989;Diwan, 1992).Furthermore, though it will be explored more later in the discussion, the relationship between governmental educational inputs in covering some of the school expenditures and community oversight and involvement has considerable correlation with the retention or dropout rate (Case and Deaton, 1999; Glewwe and Kremer, 2006).The preference parents shown towards Primary & Integrated Qur'anic Schools (PIQS) over & Alternative Basic Education (ABE) in a 1:17 ratio can only be explained, though there could be other unexplained attributes, in addition to the normal primary education curriculum, there is a koranic syllabus included in the curriculum.The lofty dropouts along the way, from enrolment to eligibility for the generalized primary education examination after eight years in primary education, could be described as might be due to poor education quality students lose yearning to learn, exacerbated by not given due attention by government and other stockholders.Also, increased dropouts elevate the number of street children and child laborer and reduces girls' education (Otike and Kiruki 2011).As a result, even those enrolled only 5% became eligible for the generalized primary education examination after eight years in primary education.That means 95% of the enrolled fall through along the way (MoE&HE statistics year books, 2014/20), and if that is, among other aforesaid attributes, associated with the student's level of scholastic performance is predicated upon the intensity of material investments assigned to schools on a per-student basis.To sum it up, as far as the huge dropouts experienced in the federal member state of Puntland primary education is concerned, the matter puts the association between social, political, economic and in the dropout rate from primary schools in major colours (Levy, 1971).To the extent that the boys' and girls' enrolment rate is concerned there has been 5% lopsidedness towards boys, and does not seem to play a significant role in here.
Similarly, the gender disparity among those who have finished grade eight and are ready to sit for the final generalized examination is not significantly different from each other.Consequently, its an indication of the parents' bias towards boys is being faced out gradually, and the awareness of parents in educating young women contributes to the girls' better future quality of life, social mobility as well as women's emancipation in the 21 st century world, as the disparity between gender opportunities in Somali society influences quality of life (Bourne, 2010).
In terms of gender disparities among teachers, only 13% of primary school teachers are female on average.Comparatively, Sub-Saharan Africa remains at just below 50%, while in the EU Member States, since 2019, out of 2.0 million teachers, women's representation has been at 85%.The finding has two connotations here: First, it proves that since independence hardly little has changed in the existing gender imbalance and the deficiency of female teachers in the teaching profession.Secondly, the culture of presenting girls to do household chores at their early ages persisted and proved an obstacle for them to pursuing teaching as a career (Cassanelli & Abdikadir 2008).This goes against the predominant belief that female teachers are more nurturing than men and are ideal candidates to fill the role in primary education (Wood, 2012).Michaelowa (2002) discovered that among the variables demonstrating teachers' sex (gender) do appear to be relevant in her work regarding primary education in francophone Sub-Saharan Africa, and usually, men give the impression of being less satisfied with their teaching occupation than women are in the sector.Another research examined the impact of female teachers on child education at the primary school level in Yola North and South Local Government Areas (LGAs), Adamawa State, Nigeria to observe the added value of having female teachers in primary schools and their effect on the enrollment, retention, and school performance of girls in primary schools.And, the study disclosed the positive impact female teachers in primary schools have on the girls' scholastic performance in the aforesaid areas.Furthermore, their vital roles as mentors in delivering a sound holistic education, such as for girls' social knowledge, can help them integrate and become better members of their societies as well as play dynamic parts in their families (Mike and Muhammad, 2020).On the whole, though Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the lowest percentage of female teachers in primary education, at just below 50% within countries, 13% of Puntland state of Somalia's female teachers are particularly improper and require immediate attention to be remedied as, among other factors, it has significant implications for girls' enrolment and their ability to endure in school.For this reason, the findings in here could have some other connotations such as the community and the administration does not encourage women graduates to apply for the teaching job, might be due to cultural factors that inhibit qualified women from expressing a tendency towards the job.In addition to the cultural factors contributing to the problem (Cassanelli & Abdikadir 2008), the dismal number of female teachers severely questions existing teacher training institutes and Ministry policy.To sum it up, having female teachers feature in primary education stimulates children's awareness, supports children in doing homework and creates affinity with teachers, to mention a few (Sulochana, 2015).Devkota and Bagale (2015) explaining the way forward on the challenges of primary education and dropouts in Nepal, recommended the activities that could help to attenuate the dropout rate in primary education and added 'encouraging female teachers into the fold'.
The distribution of the schools in the nine regions is built upon the population distribution throughout the regions, where towns along the tarmac road are better populated than those in the hinterland, thus fewer schools.The only noteworthy is that there is no distinction between public and private schools as far as school fees and other learning expenses are concerned (Figure 5, 6 and table 7 of the appendix Ib).The role government has in public schools, apart from ensuring such schools keep their status prior to the 1991 civil war as 'government owned', is that the ministry of education regional officer appoints the headmaster of the own schools in their tutelage (region).Notable is that there is a community education committee in every school, irrespective of their standing as public or private, and their role is to liaise with the community and parents, raise awareness and advocacy.
Components of the educational atmosphere that are potentially associated with the development of school quality, among other things, in primary education include the teacher-pupil ratio (Hewett et al, 2008).Based on education statistics yearbooks 2014/15-2019/20 respective school-years, the available data regarding the average ratio of the number of students enrolled annually and total teachers per year (tables 1, 2, 3 and Appendix Ia) in the particular years has been obtained as 36±4.According to the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 referenced by UNESCO (2021), the student-teacher ratio has been coming down lately in primary education in sub-Saharan Africa, but is still comparatively high.The report says that when you add it all together, the student-trained teacher ratio is currently high at the primary level, in comparison to the rest of the world (Eurostat, 2021), which means fewer one-to-one student-teacher contact times and a lower standard of quality education.
Concerning the disparity distribution of schools in the nine regions concerning the seven schoolyears examined (32±1, 128±11, 27±4, 23±3, 96±11, 122±37, 106±14, 54±4, 66±4), the significant difference among the regions in a given year could be due to the influence of additional factors such as the dispersal of population through regions in which people gravitated into the towns along the tarmac road had knock-off effect on the salaries of the teachers' variations and the number of students per school (Figure 4 and 5).To the extent that the overall public and private schools' distribution is concerned, though, as mentioned above, there is no difference between them in management and cost per child, we found that there is a significant gap of almost three-fold between the types of schools (Figure 2 & 4).As to the supply of teachers in the nine regions as to school-years, there has been a great deal of disparity in the distribution of teachers in a given region, and that has a correlation with the distribution of schools and other factors discussed above, such as the site of the schools.The Barri, Karkar, Nugal, and Mudug regions are more populated than the rest of the off-tarmac road regions (Figure 4).
Lastly, investments in schooling are critical in individual-com-societal poverty alleviation, particularly for the marginalised groups and women's emancipation through the Millennium Development Goals.Based on the findings and other similar researches, school fees could be a potentially significant impediment and ought to be eliminated or subsidized by meeting indirect costs such as expenses on text and notebooks, tuition fees, itinerant to school, school dress and examination fees for a push to universal schooling (Hewett et al, 2008, Sulochana, 2015, UNESCO, 2020).The school affordability and average cost per child/student per month in Puntland have been observed, based on the findings in this research, as $29±7 for each child per month.It is worth noting that there has been no discernible difference in overall fees and indirect costs per child across the nine regions.Thus, as per the low average family income/expenditure of $288/month and the mean number of school-reached children in a household, due to the affordability constraint, it could be inferred that the precipitous cost of sending children to school explains firstly, the low enrolment-ratios against school-reached children, and secondly, the huge dropouts and failure of 95% of the recruited students to reach year eight generalized examination (tables 1 to 5 and Appendix Ia & Ib).

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION
As far as qualitative and quantitative literature research on school improvement and effectiveness is concerned, a conceptual framework that identifies basic components while also governing school efficiency has to be articulated.Drawing from the Sub-Saharan African literature, a detailed plan to improve the quality of primary education, to conduct situation analyses and sector work on school excellence, and to monitor and evaluate educational reforms is to be formulated periodically (Heneveld, 1994).As it stands, the Puntland federal state of Somalia, or Somalia in general, for that matter, will not have sufficient financial resources to meet SDG 4 targets.The capacity of the country to achieve sustained economic growth to meet the future needs of education financing, international and regional organizations must first come up with lasting strategies, at least to better regulate both public and private schools.Second, to either foot the direct cost of school fees for public schools or meet indirect costs, such as the cost of books, stationery, examination fees, transportation, uniforms, and bags, in order to alleviate the burden of unaffordability for low-income families and make access to primary education more inclusive (Chikoko and Mthembu, 2021;Sulochana, 2015).Also, the government could explore publicprivate partnerships in the direction of future education financing.Enhancing the number of qualified primary teachers is needed for children & youth to access quality education and, at the same time, close the gap in teacher-student ratio.Albeit Sub-Saharan Africa is associated with the lowest ratio of female teachers in primary education (50%) (UNESCO, 2021), the percentage of female teachers (13%) is extremely alarming and merits immediate attention as woman teachers have an affirmative impact on girls enrolling and subsequently enduring in school.
Likewise, learning and teaching policies, curriculum and learning assessments ought to be revisited to first identify the root cause of the high dropout rate, and secondly, remedy it.To formulate an adaptable calendar and timetables, arrange for temporary learning spaces along passage routes, transportable libraries, and supportive interactive audio tuition for the nomadic children.In addition, delivering a specific curriculum for basic education in a fast-tracked arrangement through an adaptable timetable (Unicef, 2021).Finally, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the disruption of the educational stage, the ministry of education and its international partners, in addition to digital video lessons education and its mobile phone application, ought to come up with a learning platform for children, particularly those in nomadic settings and financially unable to access the digital technology platforms, to be able to access lessons in line with the official curriculum and not become victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Disclaimer: There are no competing interests to declare

20 Figure 3 :
Figure3: When tested the teacher distribution in the six school-years considered with one way ANOVA, there are no significant difference among the teachers according to school-years with P-value of 9.6x10 -1 @ 95% CI

20 Figure 4 :
Figure4: Number of schools per region in a respective school-year.ANOVA two-factor without replication was performed to test if there were significant differences among the regions in a given year.With a P-value of 5.4x10 -19 @ 95% CI, the calculated F is greater than the critical F.

Figure 6 :
Figure6: Two-Sample assuming unequal variances t-Test was carried out to ascertain extent of the gap between the public and private schools with p-value of 8.14x10 -10 @ 95% CI.Finally, the school affordability and cost per child themes have been observed emanated from the data available in table 6 of the appendix Ib.Thus, data regarding school fees, cost of transportation, fees for midterm & final examinations, cost of text & exercise books per item per student each month (all in dollars as it's hitherto the sole tender note for transactions in Puntland) were collected from three schools in each of the 9 regions of Puntland (Figure5and table 6 of appendix Ib).The averaged breakdown of the above fees for three schools in each region has been sampled and found to have fees per student for every month, cost of transportation, fees for midterm and final exams, and cost of text & exercise books as 14, 3, 4, 0.6 and 4 dollars respectively (figure5).When averaged them, they came up at $29±7 per child per month.Consequently, the overall cost per child per one school-years becomes $234.224.Predicating that amount of the available average household expenditure per year of $3,461.96($288.5/month), it comes to a considerable sway of the family expenditure per month (12%) goes to only one child's school expenses.Therefore, against the background of the average number of children in a household in Puntland of six, and, according to the Demographic Information and Household Characteristics of the Somali Health and Demographic Survey by Puntland Statistics Department, Puntland State of Somalia (PLHDS, 2014/20), to nuclear family adherent's 32 percent of households have foster and/or orphaned children makes difficult to send all the children to school.ANOVA Two-Factor Without Replication has been carried out to test if there is a significant difference between the regions insofar as the fees is concerned, and the result was that there is no significant difference among the fees levied upon students by the school authorities of the respective regions, with P-value of 2.31x10 -1 @ 95 CI.
per month In each region Fees/student($) Bus fees /child($) fees for midterm and final exams ($) Exercise books($) Cost Text books per items in ($)

Table 1 :
Demographic Status of Puntland based on the school's reach, enrolled and final exam candidates for a respective school-year source 1 .
Emanated from the estimated population census by MPED&IC (2014) driven by the number of schools reaching children (691226 of girls and 619065 boys), total number ready to register in the 2014/15 school-year was 1310291 (Table

Table 2 :
School reached, enrolled and finalized exam candidates for the 6 school-years examined.source 2 .

Table 4 :
Grade 8 final centralised examination candidates and number of promoted to form one secondary school.Source 4 .

Table 6
in the Appendix 1a).

Table 7 :
Primary education student school fees, other learning expenses such as Bus fees /child, fees for midterm and final exams, exercise books, text books.The household expenditure per school-year (8 month).Source: Ministry of Planning, economic development and international cooperation (2019).statistical release gross domestic production.pp 9.