- With the power to decide a student’s future, college admissions exams
are one of the most stressful hurdles on the path to higher education.
For the SAT, the exam used by U.S. colleges and universities to make
admissions decisions, students are advised to get lots of sleep, eat a
healthy breakfast, and show up on time.
Typically students don’t have to make a
500 kilometer drive across international borders to reach the nearest
testing center. That’s what Somaliland resident Najib Abdihamid Ahmed
had to go through, driving all the way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to take
the SAT exam so he could apply to Georgetown University in Qatar. But
Najib Ahmed isn’t a typical student.
Now a graduate of
Georgetown’s Qatar campus, he was a member of the first graduating class
of the headline-making Abaarso School of Science and Technology in
Somaliland, an American-style boarding school for grades 7-12,
personally founded and funded by successful American hedge fund trader
Jonathan Starr in 2008.
Somaliland, often described as a poor but
relatively stable oasis in an unstable region, is an unrecognized nation
that broke away from Somalia 25 years ago. Starr’s founding mission was
“to build a transformative school in a place the world had written off
as hopeless,” then to send the best and brightest to top colleges and
universities around the world. For his development plan to work, they
would then have to bring their newly acquired skills and valuable
diplomas back to Somaliland to become the doctors, lawyers, teachers,
and future leaders the struggling republic desperately needs. But there
was no guarantee his gamble would work.
“One of the biggest
challenges for students in Somaliland is the idea of returning to their
country if they have the opportunity to work and live abroad. Returning
is a sacrifice not many are willing to make,” explains Najib over the
phone from Abaarso, where he now works as the Dean of Boys, and on the
faculty of English, history, and social studies. “Being amongst the
first cohort of students, my success abroad was as crucial as my return
to Somaliland. If I hadn’t returned, over a hundred of Somaliland’s top
young minds would not have considered returning upon graduation. Joe
convinced me going home was the right decision.”
Joe is
Joseph Hernandez, the director of admissions at GU-Q. “When Najib
mentioned that he had been offered the opportunity to contribute to the
administration of his former school, I encouraged him to take it.” Joe
recalls that he was impressed with the quiet applicant from this new
innovative school in Somaliland the first time he met him. “When we find
a student that has done well in high school and has overcome the odds
to do it, that gets our attention.” Recognizing his potential, Hernandez
worked to secure the financial aid that made Najib’s enrollment
possible.
“I was a typical 17 year old when I came to Doha. I
chose Georgetown because I did research and knew it was a top school,
but I didn’t know what I wanted to do as a career. I only knew that I
liked political science, writing and reading books.” But his transition
wasn’t easy. The summer heat was unexpected, his luggage was lost, and
on his first trip, Djibouti officials deported him back to Somaliland’s
capital Hargeisa because his unofficial Somali passport wasn’t
recognized. With campus support, he overcame homesickness and culture
shock to embrace student life. An honors student, he was a member of the
Debate Team and Science Club, and played for the men’s basketball team,
graduating with a degree in International Politics in 2017.
His
education has served him well as a teacher back in Abaarso. More
significantly, he currently helps design parts of the curriculum—a
requirement for the continued accreditation by the New England
Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the same institution that
accredits top schools and universities in the U.S. and around the world.
Najib
speaks humbly of his achievements, but there is unmistakable pride when
he shares plans for the future - increasing Somali teaching and
administrative staff, a teacher-training university for Abaarso alumni
to support the struggling education system in Hargeisa, boosting
recruitment drives in more remote regions and neighboring countries, and
blue-sky plans to add a primary school someday.
Georgetown
University in Qatar has since accepted three more students from Abaarso.
Starr, who leaves the day-to-day running of the school to a new
headmaster and now spends much of his time in New York raising school
funding, knows that the story of his students matters to many people.
“Since Najib was part of our first class, he was the pioneer braving a
new country and a serious university without any proof that an Abaarso
student could make it in such a place,” he says. “That’s why I am so
proud of Najib. Our alumni can see that he is back in Somaliland even
after graduating from one of the top universities in the world. They can
see him thriving, and that is an inspiration.”
Source: Albawaba
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