The British government has decided to close all primary schools in London for the next two weeks to counter the rapid spread of a more infectious variant of the COVID-19 virus, the capital’s mayor said on Friday.

On Wednesday, the education minister, Gavin Williamson, outlined a plan to delay the reopening of secondary schools, but open most primary schools for children under 11 years old on time next week at the end of Christmas break.

Only in the hardest hit parts of the country, which included some parts of the capital but not others, were primary schools slated to shut. But local authorities in several areas where schools were due to reopen complained.

“The Government have finally seen sense and u-turned,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Twitter. “All primary schools across London will be treated the same.

“This is the right decision – and I want to thank education minister Nick Gibb for our constructive conversations over the past two days.”

(REUTERS)

The High commissioner of Canada to Cameroon, His Excellency Richard Bale, on Tuesday, November 10, 2020 graced the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cameroon with his presence at exactly 9 am.
The visiting ambassador, upon arrival, had the opportunity for full exposure to AIMS and her Ecosystem of Transformation, the Academic Life at AIMS-Cameroon, and the AIMS-Cameroon Teacher Training Program, thanks to a presentation by the Institution’s Center President, Prof. Dr. Mama Foupouagnigni, the Academic Director, Prof. Marco Garuti, and the English Pedagogic Adviser of the AIMS-Cameroon Teacher Training Program, Mme. Emilia Babila.

The ambassador equally had the opportunity to meet and interact with the students, tutors, and staff of AIMS-Cameroon who welcomed him with chants of gratitude for his interest in building the African society.

H.E Richard Bale did not part ways with the students without encouraging them to work harder and seize the unique opportunity of being at AIMS to forge friendships across Africa.

After the visit, he expressed complete satisfaction to have been in the midst of the AIMS-Cameroon community.

“It was a great visit, I learned a lot about AIMS and it was a pleasure to meet all the team” he said.

Source: Aims Cameroon

Amah Franco Anchebe, a physics and mathematics teacher at GSS Bawum in Bafut was killed by a stray bullet in his house in Alabukam in Bamenda.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that the bullet came from an altercation between Ambazonia Restoration Forces and soldiers loyal to the regime in Yaoundé in the Mankon district not far from the road to the Bamenda airport.

The French Cameroun governor Adolphe Lele Afrique reportedly summoned a meeting grouping the so-called security heads and reassured the population about the security situation in the Northern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Southern Cameroons have seen an escalation of insecurity in recent days. Cardinal Christian Tumi was kidnapped and then released by armed men. The traditional ruler of Liwu Lawale in Buea was recently assassinated. And the most appalling is the massacre of 7 children during an attack on a school in Kumba in the Meme County by armed men working for Minister Paul Atanga Nji.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

There has been an alarming spike in attacks on schools and education centers in the North- and South-West of Cameroon, UNICEF said today.

Since the resumption of the school year less than a month ago, there have been multiple reports of kidnappings, harassment and killings affecting students and teachers.

At least 6 students and 11 teachers were kidnapped, school premises were set ablaze and an unknown number of students and education staff were humiliated and harassed in various schools in Kumbo (Bui division), Fundong (Boyo division) and Limbe (Fako division).

These latest reports follow news that in Kumba, in the southwestern region, 9 students were killed, some as young as 9 years, and several others were injured in an attack on a school on 24 October.

“These attacks are unacceptable,” said Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “Schools are places of learning where children should feel safe and protected. We call on all parties to protect all children, at school or in their communities and to uphold the principles of the Safe Schools Declaration, which calls for stopping attacks on schools, education facilities and personnel.”

There were 35 attacks on schools in the unstable regions of Cameroon in 2019, according to UNICEF-verified data. This compares to 17 attacks so far this year, a decrease that might be attributed to COVID-related school closures between March and June.

“More than 1.1 million children are out of school in Cameroon. This number is expected to rise as parents and communities fear sending their children to school lest they are attacked on their way to or while they are at school. The children of Cameroon deserve better. Every missed opportunity for learning today, will prevent children from realizing their full potential and to become active and productive citizens of the future,” Poirier said.

Armed men, believed to be Amba fighters, today (November 4, 2020) attacked Kulu Memorial College in the Mile Four district in Limbe.

Two classrooms were set on fire while valuables worth thousands of dollars were destroyed. Cameroon Concord News leant that the attackers stormed the school, and then directed all students and teachers to strip naked and struck them with their sticks.

A police source in Limbe has been quoted as saying that the assailants also shot and destroyed the windscreen of cars parked opposite the school premise. One fired at the window of the principal’s office and destroyed a television set.

No Ambazonia group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

By Kinsley Betek

Schools are “weapons of war” in a separatist insurgency in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions, but the massacre of eight young children in class last week brought a new level of horror.

Since violence erupted in 2017, the kidnapping of youngsters, attacks on teachers and the destruction of schools have been frequent in the western part of the mainly French-speaking country.

Secessionist groups kill civilians, while the army is also known for brutal attacks on non-combattants in its drive to crush forces seeking a breakaway state.

On October 24, gunmen on motorbikes rode up to a bilingual school in the town of Kumba and opened fire on girls and boys aged between 12 and 14.

At least eight children perished and about a dozen more were wounded and taken to hospital, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“The school is used as a weapon of war in this conflict,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, regional Central Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told AFP.

“The separatists don’t want the children to be in the schools, institutions which they equate with central authority,” she said.

“Most of the teachers appointed to the Anglophone regions are Francophone,” Allegrozzi added, in a country where French is used by a majority. The English-speaking regions are a post-colonial heritage.

Syllabuses for history and civic education lessons are seen as biased instruments of government policy by separatists, who have in recent years introduced a strategy of school boycotts.

In November 2019, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that some 855,000 children were not attending school in the Anglophone regions.

About 90 percent of state-run primary schools, totalling more than 4,100 establishments, and 77 percent of the state-run secondary schools were not functioning or completely closed down, UNICEF found.

‘People began to believe again’

The start of the new school year on October 5, 2020, was markedly different.

“The government and Anglophone civil society put a lot of pressure on the separatist groups to let their children go back to school, and schools that had been closed for years began to reopen,” said Arrey Elvis Ntui, the senior researcher in Cameroon for the independent International Crisis Group.

“After three years of almost total school shortages, people began to believe again in the institution, the classrooms were packed,” said Jacques Ebwea, a political analyst based in Buea, the chief town of the Anglophone Southwest region.

“It was a success. Unfortunately, Saturday’s attack will dampen the enthusiasm of many people,” he added.

Blaming separatists for the killings, Communications Minister Rene Emmanuel Sadi declared that “the goal of the secessionists is to break the momentum observed in the resumption of classes for the 2020/2021 school year in the Northwest and Southwest regions, and thereby dissuade parents from sending their children to school.”

On Tuesday morning, false rumours of new attacks spread panic at schools in Limbe and Buea in the Southwest, where frightened pupils tried to flee the premises while their scared parents were rushing to fetch them.

“I don’t know if I’m going to send my child back to school,” said Desire, a resident of Kumba. “If the situation deteriorates any further, I will send him elsewhere, to Douala or Bafoussam.”

Both towns are on Francophone territory and Douala, a big city and port, is the economic capital of the country.

‘Could happen anywhere’

“There is general panic in the area,” said Semma Valentine, a teacher in Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest region. “All parties concerned in the conflict are to blame for this situation.”

“Parents must have the courage to send their children to school, but we also need the government to guarantee the safety of these establishments.”

Stephen Afuh, chairman of the Presbyterian Education Authority Teachers Trade Union (PEATTU), warned that “what happened in Kumba could happen anywhere at any time.”

He remarked on the difference between urban areas and the rural ones where many schools could not reopen.

“To ensure security in schools, the government should call a ceasefire, recognise its mistakes and open a dialogue between all parties to examine the causes of the conflict and to find solutions together,” Afuh said.

Confronted with Saturday’s attack, a “deeply outraged” government chastised the Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy in Kumba for reopening without authorisation, which meant that it “could not benefit from the same protective measures as other places of learning”.

In Cameroon, nevertheless, it is common practice for schools to open without the required authorisation.

“Keep the schools open, make sure they have the authorisations to function,” Secondary Education Minister Pauline Nalova Lyonga said in English during a visit to the site.

“The school that works will guarantee our joint existence.”

Source: AFP

Cameroon says it has again closed more than 60 schools on its northern border with Nigeria to protect children and teaching staff from increasing Boko Haram attacks. Many people have fled the region and are now displaced.

 The Islamist group has stepped up its use of suicide bombers, even as the country’s military has drastically reduced the jihadists’ firepower.

 The central African country has deployed its military to assure the safety of the remaining civilian population in the affected regions. 

 Ousmanou Garga, Cameroon’s basic education official on the northern border with Nigeria, says recent Boko Haram attacks have made many schools unsafe.

 Garga says several dozen schools in Cameroon’s Mayo Sava, Mayo Tsanaga and Logone and Chari administrative units that border Nigeria’s Borno state, the epicenter of Boko Haram’s activities, no longer function.

 “Sixty-two schools have been closed. The children have to be either scholarized (educated) in other schools very far from their own villages or to abandon schools. Thirty-four-thousand-and-fifty-four students have been registered as IDPs. We have the students of the host communities; we have even refugee students,” he said.

 Garga said teachers in all the affected schools fled with the children they teach.

 Cameroon’s military has been reporting at least three Boko Haram attacks every week since January. The military says most of the attackers are suicide bombers, mainly women and children. The military says the terrorist group has torched 13 schools within the past two months, held at least 200 people for ransom and abducted an unknown number of civilians.

 Colonel Ndikum Azeh, commander of Cameroonian troops fighting Boko Haram in the Mayo Sava, Mayo Tsanaga and Logone and Chari administrative units, says the military has been deployed to protect civilians in the area. Azeh says some troops have also been deployed to teach displaced students in safer areas less susceptible to Boko Haram attacks.

 “Ashigashia (a border town) has for long been a target for Boko Haram assault as early as 2014. The hierarchy (military) thinks that to sustain a good security situation, it is through the youths and the best process is through their education,” Azeh said.

 Nongovernmental organizations, rights and humanitarian groups have been calling on Boko Haram to respect the intergovernmental Safe School Declaration. Desire Fouda of the NGO School First says the declaration should be observed to protect students and ensure they are able to receive an education.

 “We sensitize different actors in education to respect those guidelines on safe schools declaration so that all the different actors should contribute to help those children to have access to education,” Fouda said.

 Boko Haram terrorists have been fighting for 11 years to create an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria. The fighting has spread to Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin, with regular killings, abductions and burnings of mosques, churches, markets and schools.  

Source: VOA

Universities and other higher education institutions in Cameroon started to welcome returning students on Thursday after a suspension of nearly seven months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The universities have adopted strict social distancing and all-round disinfections while receiving the returning students, officials said.

All students and teachers must wear face masks and check their temperature regularly, said Minister of Higher Education Jacques Fame Ndongo.

Some returning students told Xinhua that their emotional connection to their universities has become even deeper despite a long separation. “I feel like crying. Setting foot on campus after such a long time gives me deep satisfaction.

It was like I was in prison and now free. I’m so happy to start school again,” Gerard Batir, a sophomore of the University of Douala, told Xinhua.

Cameroon has so far recorded more than 20,000 coronavirus cases. COVID-19 prevalence in the country is generally decreasing with a recovery rate of 95 percent, according to the Ministry of Public Health.

Source: Xinhuanet

10 teachers were abducted in the Northern zone of Ambazonia on the same day that classes reportedly resumed in both French and Southern Cameroons.

A report released by the teachers association said Seydou Mbangyah, headmaster of Baba1 Bilingual High School in Ngoketunjia,  Chayi Sungha of GBHS Baba1, Ntam Yuh,a teacher at the Bambui high school in the Mezam were among the ten forcefully removed from the respective schools and taken to an unknown destination.

The French Cameroun civil administrators in the area have maintained a kind of deliberate silence on the subject as Ambazonia Restoration Forces continue to impose a boycott of schools in Southern Cameroons.

For their part, Cameroon government army soldiers have burned down school buildings, assaulted and rape students and teachers.

The attacks on schools, students and teachers have had a devastating impact on education. According to figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), up to the last school year, 4,400 schools were closed in Southern Cameroons and more than 600,000 children are being deprived of education because of the security climate.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda