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http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/01/boko-haram-insurgents-threaten-cameroons-educational-goals/
Cameroon – Boko Haram Insurgents in the North, Threaten Cameroon’s Educational Goals - Girls
A group of
Nigerian refugees rests in the Cameroon town of Mora, in the Far North Region,
after fleeing armed attacks by Boko Haram insurgents. Credit: UNHCR / D.
Mbaoirem
MAROUA, Far North Region, Jan 14 2015 (IPS) - “I’d
quit my job before going to work in a place like that.” That is how a primary
school teacher responded when IPS asked him why he had not accepted a job in
Cameroon’s Far North region.
James
Ngoran is not the only teacher who has refused to move to the embattled area
bordering Nigeria where Boko Haram has been massing and launching lightning
strike attacks on the isolated region.
“Many
teachers posted or transferred to the Far North Region simply don’t take up
their posts. They are all afraid for their lives,” Wilson Ngam, an official of
the Far North Regional Delegation for Basic Education, tells IPS. He said over
200 trained teachers refused to take up their posts in the region in 2014.
Raids
by the Boko Haram insurgents in the Far North Region have created a cycle of
fear and uncertainty, making teachers posted here balk at their responsibility,
and forcing those on the ground to bribe their way out of “the zone of death.”
Last
week, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau threatened Cameroon in a video message
on YouTube, warning that the same fate would befall the country as neighbouring
Nigeria. He addressed his message directly to Cameroonian President Paul Biya
after repeated fighting between militants and troops in the Far North.
Shekau
was reported killed in September by Cameroonian troops – a report that later
turned out to be untrue.
As
the Nigerian sect intensifies attacks on Cameroonian territory, government has
been forced to close numerous schools. According to Mounouna Fotso, a senior
official in the Cameroon Ministry of Secondary Education, over 130 schools have
already been shut down.
Most
of the schools are found in the Mayo-Tsanaga, Mayo-Sava and Logone and Chari
Divisions-all areas which share a long border with Nigeria, and where the
terrorists have continued to launch attacks.
“Government
had to temporarily close the schools and relocate the students and teachers.
The lives of thousands of students and pupils have been on the line as Boko
Haram continues to attack. We can’t put the lives of children at risk,” Fotso
said.
“We
are losing students each time there is an attack on a village even if it is
several kilometres from here,” Christophe Barbah, a schoolmaster in the Far
North Region’s Kolofata area, said in a press interview.
The
closure of schools and the psychological trauma experienced by teachers and
students raises concerns that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on
education will be missed in Cameroon’s Far North Region.
Although
both government and civil society agree that universal primary education could
attained by the end of this year in the country’s south, the 49 percent school
enrolment rate in the Far North Region, compared to the national average of 83
percent, according to UNICEF, means a lot of work still needs to be done here.
Mahamat
Abba, a resident of Fotocol whose four children used to attend one of the three
government schools there, has fled with his entire family to Kouseri on the
border with Chad.
“I
looked at my kids and lovely wife and knew a bullet or bomb could get them at
any time. We had to run away to safer environments. But starting life afresh
here is a nightmare, having abandoned everything,” he told IPS.
Alhadji
Abakoura, a resident of Amchidé, adds that the area has virtually become a
ghost town. “The town had six primary schools and a nursery school. They have
all been closed down.”
Overcrowded schools
As
students, teachers and parents relocate to safer grounds, pressure is mounting
on schools, which have to absorb the additional students with no additional
funds.
According to UNICEF figures for Cameroon, school participation
for boys topped 90 percent in 2013, while girls lagged behind at 85 percent or
less. However, participation has been much lower in the extreme northern
region.
According to the Institut National de la Statistique du
Cameroon, literacy is below 40 percent in the Far North, 40 to 50 percent in
the North, and 60-70 percent in the central north state of Adamawa. The
Millennium Development Goal is full primary schooling for both sexes by 2015.
“Many
of us are forced to follow lectures from classroom windows since there is
practically very limited sitting space inside,” Ahmadou Saidou, a student of
Government Secondary School Maroua, tells IPS. He had escaped from Amchidé
where a September attack killed two students and a teacher.
Ahmadou
said the benches on which three students once sat are now used by double that
number.
“It’s
an issue of great concern,” Mahamat Ahamat, the regional delegate for basic
education, tells IPS.
“In
normal circumstances, each classroom should contain a maximum of 60 students.
But we are now in a situation where a single classroom hosts over one hundred
and thirty students,” he said. “We are redeploying teachers who flee risk
zones…we are getting them over to schools where students are fleeing to.
“These
attacks are really slowing things down,’ Mahamat said.
Government response to the crisis
The
Nigerian-based sect Boko Haram has intensified attacks on Cameroon in recent
years, killing both civilians and military personnel and kidnapping nationals
and expatriates in exchange for ransoms.
To
respond to the crisis, Cameroon has come up with military and legal reforms. A
new military region was set up in the country’s Far North Region. According to
Defence Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o, “The creation of the 4th Military
Region is meant to bring the military closer to the theatre of threats, and to
boost the operational means in both human and material resources.”
Military
equipment has been supplied by the U.S., Germany and Israel, according to press
reports.
Mebe
Ngo’oo said Cameroon will recruit 20,000 soldiers over the next two years to
step up the fight against the terrorists. Besides the military option, Cameroon
has also come up with a legal framework to streamline the fight against
terrorism. An anti-terrorism law was passed by Parliament in December,
punishing all those guilty of terrorist acts by death.
But
opposition political leaders, civil society activists and church leaders have
criticised it as anti-democratic and fear it is actually intended to curtail
civil liberties.
Edited by Lisa Vives