During an official visit to Yaoundé, Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, announced the mobilisation of $44.5 million for education in Cameroon. The funds will be used to modernise school curricula and train more than 28,000 education professionals.

“Cameroon has made education a priority and it was essential for UNESCO to support these efforts. Thanks to the Global Partnership for Education, today we’re mobilising $44.5 million to boost the improvements of the country’s school system. This is yet another example of UNESCO’s firm commitment to supporting all its Member States in their efforts to achieve universal access to education” Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO said.

With these new funds, UNESCO and Cameroon will work together to modernise school curricula, with a particular emphasis on multilingual education. The Organization will provide more than 4 million school textbooks and teaching manuals. It will also support the training of 15,000 teachers as well as 13,000 headteachers, trainers and educational professionals. Finally, this initiative will provide school meals to children from the poorest families to further support their schooling.

This initiative in Cameroon joins those already undertaken by UNESCO in many other African countries. In recent years, the Organization has notably raised $15.7m for education in Burundi, $48.2m in Chad, $39.5m in Côte d’Ivoire, and $10.7m in the Republic of Congo – again as part of the Global Partnership for Education. At a time when the African Union has dedicated 2024 as the year of education, UNESCO is once again demonstrating its role as a leading partner of African states in this field.

Source: miragenews

The Basic Education Ministry recently warned public primary school administrators about “shortcomings”, including the mandatory imposition of parent-teacher association (PTA) fees, just over a week before the new school year.

In an August 20 letter, Basic Education Minister Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa highlighted the issue but did not take a definitive stance on the contentious matter of the fees.

Since a 2001 presidential decree made public preschool and primary education free, parent-teacher association fees have risen significantly, sometimes exceeding XAF25,000.

Parents have long criticized the situation, which persists as school administrators cite a lack of resources to pay teachers and cover operating costs.

In 2021, addressing members of parliament, Minister Etoundi Ngoa stated, “There are ongoing challenges. Since there was no cap [ the parent-teacher association fees], to prevent abuses, my colleague from Secondary Education recommended a limit of XAF25,000 during her visit to Douala. I believe that Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) are crucial and should continue. The government, parents, and development partners are the key education stakeholders, as outlined by UNESCO.”

The other shortcomings addressed by Minister Ngoa include “the sale of school supplies within institutions at exorbitant prices, the sale of spots for enrolling new students at each school year, including to parents benefiting from transfers, the neglect of social cases, and even children from internally displaced families.”

Source: Business in Cameroon

Elites of Eyumojock Sub-division are currently in Limbe to  brainstorm on how schools can resume in the sub-division.

The event, chaired by the determined CPDM Member of Parliament, Honorable Teku Tanyu, has brought together some prominent chiefs of the sub-division and politicians who hold that depriving children of the opportunity to go to school is a destruction of the children’s future.

Since the socio-political problems in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon started in 2016, many kids in the sub-division have not been going to school.

For a sub-division of 66 villages, only two villages having functioning schools – Ekok and Eyumojock. 

For the past six years, kids in Kembong, Ewelle, Ossing, Ndekwai, Eyanchang and other villages have not been to school and this is bad news to the sub-division whose leaders hold that the road to a bright future passes through sound education.

Speaking during the brainstorming session, the Eyumojock Sub-division Member of Parliament, Teku Tanyi, himself a disciple of formal education, urged elites of the division to help children to return to school.

He underscored the importance of education to the sub-division’s development, adding that without education, most children from the sub-division will not have the right tools to face the future.

The Member of Parliament who hails from Ossing and who has been working relentlessly for the resumption of schools in the sub-division lamented that many children have been robbed of their future.

This is a developing story and more will be yours when available.

By Dr Joachim Arrey

Cameroon recorded 48 attacks on schools between January and June 2024, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports in a statement released on World Humanitarian Day (August 19). “Such instability affects children’s right to education,” lamented the UN, without specifying where these attacks occurred. However, several international reports revealed attacks by separatist armed groups in the crisis-affected regions of the Northwest and Southwest.

One of the most notable attacks occurred in October 2020 when armed separatists targeted the Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy in Kumba, resulting in the deaths of eight students. In February 2022, similar attacks were carried out on the Molyko public primary school and the Catholic college “Queen of the Rosary.”

Since the outbreak of the separatist conflict in 2017, over 700,000 children have been unable to attend school due to the ongoing violence.

The UN also reported 18 attacks on healthcare facilities during the same period.

Source: Sbbc

Catholic teachers have to be peace ambassadors, imparting a culture of peace to learners, Archbishop Andrew Fuanya Nkea of Cameroon’s Catholic Archdiocese of Bamenda has said.

In his homily during the annual celebration of Teachers Day in his Metropolitan See, Archbishop Nkea urged Catholic teachers to exercise their profession, which he said is characterized by dignity, with commitment.

“The vocation you have answered to be a teacher is a very noble one. It is a profession that has dignity,” he said during the July 20 celebration that was held at St. Joseph Cathedral of Bamenda Archdiocese.

The Cameroonian Catholic Archbishop added, “The dignity of this vocation lies in the fact that  you take responsibility to do what God does; impart knowledge to others and we know that God, who has called you will not abandon you. He will continue to protect you, especially from the violence that we have in our society.”

“That is why I ask all of you to be pro-peace and to hand over a culture of peace to the children whom you teach,” the Archbishop of Bamenda who doubles as the President of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) said.

He told the Catholic teachers to “see every child sitting in your classroom as your own biological child.”

“You are transmitters of knowledge and therefore transmitters of truth. You are not going to give your own ideas or what you think. You are going to transmit what is true,” he emphasized.

He also underlined the need to foster moral aptitude, saying, “You are transmitters of the doctrine of our church because our schools remain agents of evangelization. You are transmitters of the moral values of the church which are summarized in the 10 Commandments.”

The 58-year-old Catholic Archbishop, who started his Episcopal Ministry in August 2013 as the Coadjutor Bishop of Cameroon’s Mamfe Diocese called upon the Catholic teachers to find fulfilment in their profession and interaction with learners.

“Be happy, joyful, and proud teachers. Be teachers with dignity,” he said.

Archbishop Nkea added, “Let the poverty you have be known only to your pockets. The more you thank God for what he has done, the more God multiplies what you are. The value of what you do can never ever be quantified or calculated in monetary terms.”

He encouraged the Catholic teachers to be sources of inspiration. When people get to see you, he said, let them be “hungry to be Catholic teachers.”

Source: aciafrica