Cameroon’s Anglophone Children Pay the Price as Separatist Lockdowns Restrict Right to Education

By Njoh Linda

For children in Cameroon’s conflict-hit North West and South West regions, the right to education continues to be sacrificed in a conflict they did not create.

Since 2016, separatist armed groups have repeatedly disrupted schooling through ghost towns, lockdowns, threats and attacks on schools, teachers and learners.

Over 500 schools have also been burned or forced to close.

The result is a prolonged education crisis that has deprived hundreds of thousands of children of regular access to learning.

The latest disruption comes amid a month-long lockdown being observed in several parts of the two English-speaking regions.

For secondary school students, the impact can be measured in classroom hours. With schools generally offering eight lessons a day, 20 school days lost could mean 160 lessons missed.
But the consequences go beyond lost lessons.

Education is a Right, Not a Bargaining Tool

Under international human rights law, every child has the right to education. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Cameroon is a party, requires states to protect children’s access to education and ensure that it is available without discrimination.

That right does not disappear during an armed conflict.
Yet, in the Anglophone regions, separatist lockdowns and threats have repeatedly made attending school risky or impossible.

Parents say conflicting messages from different separatist factions have further deepened uncertainty.

Some groups call for lockdowns while others issue different instructions, leaving parents unsure whether sending their children to school could expose them to danger.

For families, keeping children at home can become a safety decision. For children, however, it means another day without education.

Children Caught in the Middle

The continued disruption amounts to a heavy burden on a generation already affected by years of conflict.

Children have lost valuable learning time, while some have dropped out altogether. Others have been displaced in search of safer places to study.

Attacks on educational facilities and threats against teachers and learners have also undermined the very environment needed for children to learn safely.

Separatist groups say their actions are part of a struggle for political independence.
But political objectives cannot justify denying children their fundamental rights.

A Responsibility to Protect Children

The government has the primary obligation to ensure that children can access safe and quality education. But armed separatist groups also have obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and respect fundamental rights.

As another lockdown keeps classrooms empty, the question is no longer simply when schools will reopen but how much longer children in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions can be denied a fundamental right before the damage becomes irreversible.

After almost a decade of conflict, every additional lockdown deepens the education crisis and pushes another generation further away from the future that education is supposed to make possible.