Parents, teachers and students in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon have been overcoming fear and as such, school attendance is on a speedy increase
One of the worst decisions ever taken by advocates of secession in Cameroon to form a pseudo nation of Ambazonia was to shutdown schools across the NW/SW regions. The decision was objected nationally and internationally and though in some areas, threats, intimidations, kidnaps and burnings were used by the none state armed groups to enforce it, many a person had to fight back through physical and online campaigns educating proponents of school boycott to realise that by shutting down schools, they're shooting themselves in the leg and losing support plus legitimacy of their demands.
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| Thousands of pupils and students watching a football match at launching ceremony |
Parents, teachers and students were also schooled on the need to take their destiny into their hands and realise that no one has the right to trample on another person's right to education. Before long, many schools began forcefully reopening their doors, many pupils, students and teachers regained the school roads and seeing the determination in them, the agents of school boycott had no option than to pipe down and respect the will of the people.
Today across the NW/SW regions, hundreds of thousands of pupils, students and teachers are going to school. Even in the hinterlands alerged to be strongholds of the restoration forces, schools are functioning. A massive increase in enrollment has been reported during this second term of the academic year as some who were still doubting finally realised the need to jump on the education bandwagon. Cases too have been reported of parents who had enrolled their kids in the francophone regions bringing them back to school in the NW/SW.
In Bamenda, headquarters of the NW region, the recent impressive attendance at a ceremony to launch activities for the forthcoming 54th edition of the National Youth Day was a clear indication of how the educational sector in the region is bouncing back to normalcy in full gear. It was on Tuesday February 4th 2020 at Government Primary School, Up Station that North West governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique, represented by Viang Mekala, Secretary General at the governor's office presided over the launching ceremony.
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| Viang Mekala, S.G at NW Governor's Office |
Before the advent of the Anglophone Crisis, youth week used to be one of the high points of the academic calendar highly cherished by pupils and students as it involved inter school competitions in sporting activities, choral singing, traditional dance and other fun filled competitions. For long, such died down because of the crisis but the recent ambiance that raised dust at Up Station proved the contrary, that normalcy is returning.
The 54th edition of the national youth day shall be celebrated on Tuesday 11 February 2020 under the theme "Youth, peace, decentralization and participation in local governance for a new Cameroon. It is expected to bring together educational stakeholders, parents, teachers, pupils, students and the public at large to exercise their civic responsibilities and acquire information on the efforts the state is making to ensure their harmonious and responsible integration into the socioeconomic and political fabric.
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| Exhibition during launching |
After regaining the schools, the population has of recent in collaboration with the state been strategising on how to re-boom the economy by ending ghost towns and lockdowns that have gone a long way to crumble the economy of the two affected regions especially that of the NW thereby causing backbreaking pain on the citizens instead of liberating them from bondage as they were promised from the beginning of the struggle.
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