Higher Education and Federalism in Somalia: What the Constitution and Higher Education Laws Actually provide

By Dr. Abdirazak Takar

On 4 March 2026, Somalia adopted a new constitution in Mogadishu, ratified under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamed, replacing the Provisional Constitution that had governed the federal project since 2012. For outside observers, Somali’s federal experiment is easy to misrepresentation as either a fragile arrangement barely holding the country together or a formality that changes little in practice. Neither view survives contact with the text. Among its articles and schedules is a clear answer to a question that has troubled Somali higher education policy for over a decade: does responsibility for universities, research institutes and technical colleges belong the Federal Government or to the Federal Member States?

The new text is unambiguous about the multi-level character of higher education governance. Article 25(5) assigns the development of higher education to the different levels of government, and the Second Schedule places both higher education, technology and research institutions, and the development and quality of education more broadly, among the powers the Federal Government and Federal Member States hold concurrently. The constitutional framework envisions a system of shared and collaborative governance, rather than one in which either level of government administers exclusively

Article 29(5): A Deliberate Rewrite

The old Provisional Constitution’s Article 30(7) read simply: “The State shall promote higher education, technical institutes, and technology and research institutions.” In Somali constitutional practice, “the State” (Dawladda) has generally been understood, rightly or wrongly, as shorthand for the Federal Government.

The new constitution abandons that language. Article 29(5) now reads:

“Heerarka kala duwan ee hay’adaha dawladda ee u xilsaaran waxbarashada waa in ay horumariyaan tacliinta sare, machadyada farsamo, tiknoolijiyada, cilmibaarista, hal-abuurka, cayaaraha, hiddaha iyo dhaqanka.” (“The various levels of government institutions responsible for education shall develop higher education, technical institutes, technology, research, innovation, sport, heritage and culture.”)

This is not a minor stylistic change. Replacing “the State” with “the various levels of government institutions” broadens the provision deliberately, recognising that federal, state and local institutions each carry this obligation. The 2012 text could reasonably be read as assigning higher education to Mogadishu alone. The 2026 text closes off that reading.

The Schedule Confirms the Position

If any doubt remained after Article 29(5), the Second Schedule settles it. The constitution distinguishes between Schedule Two (A), the exclusive powers of the Federal Government; Schedule Two (B), powers held concurrently by both levels of government; and Schedule Two (C), the exclusive powers of the Federal Member States.

Item 8 of Schedule Two (B) lists “the development plan for education and the protection of its quality” among the concurrent powers. Item 41 of the same schedule, the final entry under its education heading, then adds:

“Tacliinta sare, tiknoolijiyadda iyo hay’adaha cilmibaarista.” (“Higher education, technology, and research institutions.”)

Both provisions sit in Schedule Two (B). Neither appears in Schedule Two (C), which begins immediately afterwards with an entirely different list covering matters such as state constitutions and state budgets. Higher education and the development and quality of education generally are, in other words, companion entries within the same concurrent list, not powers split across separate federal and state schedules. The constitution treats them as a shared undertaking.

A Deliberate Distinction, Not an Omission

The drafters plainly understood the difference between functions that require a single national authority and those that do not, because they drew that line explicitly in the neighbouring schedule. Item 40 of Schedule Two (A), the exclusive federal list, gives the Federal Government sole authority over curriculum setting, teacher training, and national secondary school certification examinations. Those functions demand a single national standard, and the constitution says so without qualification.

Higher education was not given the same treatment. It was placed instead in the concurrent schedule, alongside the general duty to develop education and protect its quality. The stronger constitutional inference is that curriculum, teacher training and national examinations were considered to need one national voice, while higher education, technology and research were considered to need shared national and state involvement rather than exclusive control by either level.

Articles 64 and 68: How the Shared Power Operates

The position becomes clearer still when the surrounding articles are read alongside Article 29(5) and Schedule Two (B). Article 64 sets out the constitution’s general principles of federalism, including the requirement that governmental power be distributed across all levels of government, that levels of government cooperate continuously with one another, and that responsibility for delivering services be assigned to whichever level of government has sufficient capacity to deliver them most effectively and is closest to the citizen being served.

Article 68 then gives the concurrent powers listed in Schedule Two (B) a specific operating structure, rather than leaving them undifferentiated. It assigns responsibility for legislation, policy, regulation, standards and monitoring in concurrent areas to the Federal Government, while assigning implementation and execution of those same powers to the Federal Member States.

Applied to higher education, this is a considered division of labour. The Federal Government’s role is to set national policy, standards and regulatory frameworks and to monitor their application. The Federal Member States’ role is to implement them, including through their own institutions such as state-level higher education commissions. Read together, Article 29(5), Article 64, Article 68 and Schedule Two (B) describe one coherent model: national standards set and monitored centrally, delivered through Federal Member State institutions on the ground.

National Standards Without a Single Administrator

This constitutional structure resolves a false choice that has shaped the debate for years: the assumption that credible national standards require a single national administrator.

Somalia clearly needs coherence in higher education. Qualifications should carry the same weight whether earned in Mogadishu, Garowe or Kismayo. Quality assurance systems need to command the confidence of employers and international partners. Research institutions should be able to meet recognised benchmarks. None of this requires concentrating every regulatory decision in one federal office. A concurrent power, structured as Article 68 structures it, is built to deliver both outcomes at once: national standards, exercised in practice through Federal Member State institutions.

What the Higher Education Laws Actually Provide

The constitutional question becomes more concrete when the two higher education laws already in force are examined. The Federal Higher Education Law, enacted in December 2024, creates a substantial national regulatory architecture. It defines “Government” as the Federal Government, provides that the Minister leads national higher education policy after consultation with Federal Member State education authorities and the National Higher Education Commission, and establishes the National Commission with its headquarters in the capital and branches in the Federal Member States. The Commission is given broad functions, including setting standards for higher education institutions, inspecting and evaluating them, granting accreditation, determining qualification requirements, and recognising degrees and diplomas. (Federal Higher Education Law, Law No. 30, 4 December 2024, Articles 2, 4, 9 to 10 and 19 to 20.)

The Federal law also recognises a Federal Member State role. Article 35 provides that a Federal Member State may establish a university and assumes responsibility for its facilities, with the university’s budget approved by the state parliament. The same provision, however, requires the state university to proceed through procedures set by the Federal law, while the law separately allows the Federal Government to establish higher education institutions elsewhere in the country. The statutory model is therefore mixed: it recognises state institutions while placing extensive licensing, accreditation and quality control functions within the federal framework. (Federal Higher Education Law, Articles 23 to 35.)

Puntland’s amended Higher Education Law establishes a parallel state-level framework. Its scope extends throughout Puntland and applies to Puntland’s higher education institutions. It establishes the Puntland Higher Education Commission as a legally independent administrative body under the political supervision of the Ministry of Education, empowered to set standards for opening and operating higher education institutions, determine qualification requirements, inspect and evaluate institutions, grant accreditation, and develop higher education policy and strategy for Puntland. It also gives the Commission a direct role in establishing and accrediting universities and other institutions, and places responsibility for their facilities and budgets on the Puntland Government. (Puntland Higher Education Law, as amended in 2025, Articles 3 to 6, 19 to 20 and 23 to 30.)

The comparison reveals a genuine overlap. The two statutes cover much of the same regulatory ground: standards, accreditation, inspection, recognition and institutional establishment. That overlap does not by itself show that either level possesses exclusive authority. It shows instead that the statutory framework developed with substantial regulatory roles at both levels, before the 2026 Constitution clarified how those roles should relate to one another. The Federal law predates the new constitution, and so do Puntland’s 2025 amendments. Both should now be read, and where necessary revised, in line with the allocation confirmed in Article 29(5), Schedule Two (B) and Article 68, rather than treated as settling the matter on their own terms.

Read this way, the statutes reinforce the constitutional argument rather than complicate it. A national framework is plainly valuable, and the Federal law shows why. But a national framework does not require every accreditation, licensing, inspection or institutional decision to be administered from the centre. Puntland’s law shows that substantial regulatory capacity already exists at the Federal Member State level. The more coherent solution is a functional division consistent with Article 68: national standards and monitoring, exercised through Federal Member State implementation, with agreed mechanisms for mutual recognition.

Two Commissions, One Constitutional Logic

The coexistence of a National Higher Education Commission and a Puntland Higher Education Commission should be read in light of both the constitutional allocation of powers and the statutes enacted under it. Neither institution’s existence is, by itself, evidence that the other must yield. The precise legal task is to harmonise their statutory powers with the constitutional division set out above.

That task is not to decide which commission should give way, but to identify which functions are genuinely national, which sit within Federal Member State authority, and which require cooperation. Common benchmarks, mutual recognition, compatible accreditation procedures, shared data and a standing federal and state dialogue on quality assurance can supply the connective structure. A National Higher Education Commission can perform national coordination and standard setting where constitutionally authorised, while a state-level commission regulates and supervises institutions within its own jurisdiction. The aim should be complementarity, not duplication or unilateral expansion by either side.

Towards a Federal Higher Education Compact

What Somalia needs now is not a further contest over jurisdiction, but a negotiated Federal Higher Education Compact that translates the constitutional allocation into workable administrative arrangements: agreed national quality benchmarks, clear accreditation and licensing pathways, mutual recognition between federal and state regulators, shared data systems, and a standing mechanism for resolving disputes through dialogue and constitutional procedure.

Such a compact matters because the existing statutes predate the 2026 Constitution and were drafted against an earlier and less settled understanding of how federal and state authority over higher education should relate. The aim should not be to invalidate the legitimate regulatory objectives of either law, but to clarify institutional boundaries and build a coherent federal and state system consistent with what the constitution now provides.

Why Adherence to the Text Matters Now

The analysis above is not a merely academic exercise. It has direct bearing on how the Federal Ministry of Education, and Federal Member State authorities such as Puntland’s Ministry of Education and its Higher Education Commission, should conduct themselves in practice. Where the constitution assigns a function concurrently, as it does with higher education, technology, research institutions, and the development and protection of education quality, the Federal Government’s role under Article 68 is to set policy, standards and regulation and to monitor their application. It is not to administer Puntland’s universities directly, to bypass Puntland’s own statutory Higher Education Commission, or to treat implementation, which the constitution assigns to Federal Member States, as a federal prerogative.

A Federal Government that exceeds this role, whether by asserting licensing or accreditation authority the constitution does not give it, by disregarding Puntland’s Higher Education Law, or by making appointments and decisions that displace rather than coordinate with Puntland’s Commission, is not exercising national leadership. It is departing from the constitutional text this article has set out. The remedy is not political improvisation on either side, but adherence to Article 29(5), Schedule Two (B) and Article 68 as written, and to the Federal Higher Education Law and Puntland’s Higher Education Law as they stand until lawfully harmonised through negotiation.

This matters beyond the immediate dispute. Federal systems are judged internationally by whether their central governments observe the limits the constitution places on them, not only by whether subnational governments comply with the centre. A Federal Government that treats concurrent powers as an opening for administrative expansion, rather than a basis for cooperation, risks the same institutional distrust, duplicated structures and politicised disputes over academic quality that this article has warned against throughout. That outcome would serve neither Somalia’s national cohesion nor Puntland’s legitimate institutional interests. It would serve only the temporary convenience of whichever office in Mogadishu found it expedient to disregard the allocation of powers the constitution itself sets out.

None of this is a case against federal involvement in higher education. Somalia needs the national standards, coordination and monitoring that Article 68 assigns to the Federal Government. It is a case against mistaking that concurrent role for exclusive control, and against any ministry, federal or state, substituting personal or factional discretion for the procedures the constitution and the existing statutes already provide.

The Wider Lesson

Somalia’s higher education debate is not simply about which institution holds regulatory authority. It is about whether the federal system can distinguish national leadership from centralised administration, and whether its institutions, federal and state alike, will be bound by the constitution they operate under rather than by convenience. The constitution, read together with the existing higher education laws, points to a system in which national standards and coordination coexist with meaningful Federal Member State implementation and institutional authority. Any departure from that allocation, in either direction, is a constitutional problem to be corrected, not a political victory to be defended.

Somalia does not need a higher education system organised around which institution holds the pen. It needs one that is coherent, credible and cooperative: national where the constitution assigns a national standard, shared where the constitution assigns a concurrent responsibility, and implemented locally where the constitution assigns that role to the Federal Member States. That is the more sustainable way to reconcile national standards with federalism.

Dr. Abdirazak Takar
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Dr Abdirazak Takar is Deputy Chair of the Higher Education Commission of Puntland State, Somalia. He previously served as Rector of East Africa University, Somalia. He writes on higher education policy, governance, political affairs, and Islamic and comparative law.
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Constitutional References
Provisional Constitution of the Federal Republic of Somalia (2012): Articles 30(7), 50, 52 and 54.
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Somalia (Mogadishu, 4 March 2026): Article 29(5), p.20; Article 64; Article 68; Second Schedule (B), Concurrent Powers, items 8 and 41, pp.178 to 180.

Statutory References
Federal Higher Education Law, Law No. 30, 4 December 2024, Articles 2, 4, 9 to 10, 19 to 20 and 23 to 35. Puntland Higher Education Law, as amended in 2025, Articles 3 to 6, 19 to 20 and 23 to 30.
© Dr Abdirazak Takar 4 September 2026

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