Educationally, pastoralists appear to be a paradox. From the point of view of official education they are a complete failure: in terms of enrolment, attendance, classroom performance, achievement, continuity to higher education and gender balance they regularly score badly.
However, pastoralists although poor (some of them) are far from being a mass of drifting unskilled under-class as they should be according to the popular understanding of basic education as a fundamental need. On the contrary, as a necessary requirement for their daily lives in the drylands, pastoralists perform tasks involving high levels of individual and social specialisation. A consideration of this paradox should be at the centre of every analysis of the continuous failure, with regard to nomads, of the universal project of education.
To date, as a universal project, education has had a very broad goal – the fulfilment of all individuals as human beings – and a very narrow view – the structure and content of the service. With regard to education of nomads, this review of the literature suggests that such attitude should be reversed: there is a need for a broader view and focused goals. Policies should expand the view from statistics and the classroom to education as a broad phenomenon.
