The 19-year-old is intent on improving his language skills, hoping to land a scholarship to pursue undergraduate studies abroad.
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With a good command of English and a high school certificate, Mohammed believes he can one day secure an opportunity to study at a university overseas.
But because he completed high school in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which is under the control of the Houthi rebel group, Mohammed now worries that government authorities in Aden will not validate his academic credentials.
Yemen has been divided between the internationally-recognised government and the Houthis since the country’s war started more than a decade ago.
The Aden-based government Education Ministry issued a circular in late July suspending the authentication of some school certificates issued in Houthi-controlled areas.
The ministry said in early August that it could not access official records needed to verify some students’ documents, blaming the Houthis for the problem.
Students have been left in the middle of the quagmire, uncertain of how it will be resolved.
It also means that, for now, the dream of studying abroad is over. Yemenis who want to leave the country to study must have their certificates authenticated by the government’s Foreign Ministry, but that won’t happen without a stamp from the Education Ministry confirming that the certificate is genuine.
Ayman Ahmed, an 18-year-old who just graduated from high school in Houthi-controlled Raymah province, said it was students who were being punished, not the Houthis.
Earlier this month, the government’s Minister of Education Adel al-Abadi clarified that the suspension of certificate authentications in Houthi-controlled areas does not apply to all academic years.
He said that the ministry has access to student records for some years, allowing it to verify and authenticate certificates issued during those periods.
But Ahmed said that wasn’t the fault of the students now affected.
With Yemen’s geography fragmented between the Houthis and the Yemeni government since 2015, each side has adopted its own education policies, creating two parallel systems.
The school year, for example, begins in June in areas controlled by the Houthis, while schools in areas under the control of the government reopen at the end of August.
The school curricula have also diverged, with the Houthis making numerous alterations to the previous textbooks.
Abdu explained that in addition to the different calendars and curricula, Yemen’s two competing education systems have different high school test formats, as well as different dates for those exams.
The recent uptick in fighting in Yemen, which has threatened to drag the country back into all-out war after a relatively quiet four years, is likely to cause further problems for students, Abdu said.
He pointed out that violence would likely displace families and damage schools, like previous rounds of the war.
According to the United Nations, around 2,800 schools in Yemen have been destroyed or damaged, or used for purposes other than education because of the war.
And, the UN says, more than 6. 6 million children were out of school in Yemen this year – about one-third of the country’s school-age children.
Aref Naji Ali, an advisor with the Ministry of Education in Aden, told Al Jazeera that the continued division in educational policies is one of “the most dangerous consequences of the Yemeni conflict”.
While Ali defended the Aden-based Education Ministry’s decision to suspend the endorsement of certificates that it was unable to verify, he put the blame on the Houthis.
But for those impacted, that sentiment isn’t enough.
Ammar Amri, a schoolteacher in Sanaa, is angry that his students are being robbed of the opportunities he believes they deserve.
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