A oft-repeated myth is that somalis do not perform as good in education as other ethnicities. I am not denying that the current educational situation in the somaly community is not perfect, but it is not as close to as bad as some portray it. In fact, the opposite is closer to the truth. To substantiate this claim, I will below present somali educational achivement in the UK, more specifically Lambeth schools in London, for the past years regarding GCSE.
Let’s start from 2009: Somalis have had a steady increase in pass rate, from 48% in 2009 to 61% in 2011 and thus being above the national pass rate at 59%.
If we look at the GCSE score trend for somali pupils in Lambeth for the period 2014-2018, we find that they are above the national average in all instances, scoring 60%, 55%, 71%, 55%, 64% respectively. You may also note that the somalis outperform the white British 3 years out of 5.
It gets even more interesting when looking at the English and Maths 9 to 4/A*-C attainment by ethnic background, having a 81% and 78% pass rate for 2016 and 2018 respectively (with the national average being 59% in both instances):
Add the above to the fact that more than a third (36%) of the pupils were eligible for free meals, a proxy for social deprivation.
Another interesting thing is the scores for KS1 and KS2, where a large part of the Somalis are not fluent in English and still do well (you can look up the numbers in the link).
Too bad it is rather impossible to find statistics such as these here in Sweden, all they ever give is statistics of “pupils with parents born in other countries”, which is a shame really. I do not know how it looks in North America, but I’d think there is a possibility to find such information, no?
Sources:
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/rsu/site...ali_pupils_raising_achivement_report_2018.pdf
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/rsu/sites/www.lambeth.gov.uk.rsu/files/The_Achievement_of_Somali_Pupils_in_Lambeth_Research Brief_2016.pdf
Let’s start from 2009: Somalis have had a steady increase in pass rate, from 48% in 2009 to 61% in 2011 and thus being above the national pass rate at 59%.
If we look at the GCSE score trend for somali pupils in Lambeth for the period 2014-2018, we find that they are above the national average in all instances, scoring 60%, 55%, 71%, 55%, 64% respectively. You may also note that the somalis outperform the white British 3 years out of 5.
It gets even more interesting when looking at the English and Maths 9 to 4/A*-C attainment by ethnic background, having a 81% and 78% pass rate for 2016 and 2018 respectively (with the national average being 59% in both instances):
Add the above to the fact that more than a third (36%) of the pupils were eligible for free meals, a proxy for social deprivation.
Another interesting thing is the scores for KS1 and KS2, where a large part of the Somalis are not fluent in English and still do well (you can look up the numbers in the link).
Too bad it is rather impossible to find statistics such as these here in Sweden, all they ever give is statistics of “pupils with parents born in other countries”, which is a shame really. I do not know how it looks in North America, but I’d think there is a possibility to find such information, no?
Sources:
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/rsu/site...ali_pupils_raising_achivement_report_2018.pdf
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/rsu/sites/www.lambeth.gov.uk.rsu/files/The_Achievement_of_Somali_Pupils_in_Lambeth_Research Brief_2016.pdf
you wont see the right wing report this
