Back To School 2023: North West Governor Wages War Against Community, Clandestine Schools

The Governor of the North West Region, Adolphe Lele L’Afrique has waged a war against community and clandestine schools in his jurisdiction.

The fight against clandestine and community schools has been launched ahead of the start of the new academic year on September 4.

The Governor gave instructions to his collaborators to crack down on the illegally existing establishments during a security and coordination meeting for the maintenance of Law and Order in Bamenda.

During the meeting on Thursday, August 24, he pointed out that the schools that have not fulfilled the conditions laid down by the ministries of basic, secondary, and even tertiary education will be shut down.

According to the senior administrative officer, most such schools are “unteaching instead of teaching the learners.”

“Community schools are illegal, and I have instructed administrative authorities to close them down all over the North West Region,” the Governor said.

“We will also sanction accordingly those that are behind such schools, keeping in line with the laws of the Republic,” Governor Lele added.

Community schools have sprung up in response to separatists’ calls for school boycotts since the start of the ongoing armed crisis in the Anglophone regions.

Armed groups fighting for a separate state for the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon, had launched the forceful school boycott in the hope of gaining the attention of international communities.

After several years of school boycotts, many parents in the two restive regions welcomed the community-driven initiative of setting up community schools to teach their kids.

However, most of these schools don’t conform to procedures for the creation and operation of such institutions of learning.

This has prompted the regional authorities to take action to put order within the sector