No “Hand-Holding” in Yemeni Education
Katebah Alolefi is currently a student in Oakland California but has just this past summer returned to her home in Yemen to visit and re-explore the education system.
When I went to Yemen I had a lot of goals in mind: relax, eat a lot, hang out with family who I miss dearly, try new food, stay with my sweet grandma, and learn about new things including the education system.
I didn’t get a chance to interview many different students about their experiences in the education system nor did I get a chance to get a tour by a staff member at my old elementary school because the schools were closed for Ramadan and the Eid holiday. Despite these setbacks I learned about how the education system works in Yemen and It was a bit of shock on how it works. The fact that they didn’t consider 9th grade as the first year of high school didn’t surprise me but the way students attend college definitely did.
In Yemen there is no such thing as a 4 Year university before graduate school. When I talked about how that is and how it works in the USA they all let me know that I was wasting my time because I should already have an idea of what I want to become by the time I graduate. That’s definitely something different than what I was used to hearing. Here in the USA, we students are usually told that we don’t have to know in high school what we aspire to be in the future. It helps that when it comes to senior year applications for the university of our choosing that we can apply undecided for the major. Or we have the chance to take many different classes in freshmen year of college until we find what major we plan to pursue.
In Yemen it is a totally different story. There is no Undergrad where you can try different classes until you find the career that you want to pursue. As soon as you graduate you have to wait one year (if you are attending
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