The Minister of Secondary Education, MINESEC, Pauline Nalova Lyonga, has ruled out a decision to exclude from schools students engaging in sexual practices. She reconsidered her decision after visiting the campus of the Government Bilingual High School Ekounou in Yaoundé last Friday, March 19.
The institution had been at the center of a moral scandal for several days following the supposed arrest of some of its students involved in a sex ‘party’.
The Secretary-General of MINESEC, Prof Pierre Fabien Nkot, speaking to the state broadcaster, CRTV revealed that the Minister during her visit to the school ordered that the different actors in the school subject seven female students from the school to a rigorous follow-up and reformation.
“The minister met the leaders of the establishment and she discussed at length, for nearly 2 hours, with the young girls who were involved in this act. At the end of these consultations, she called on the various stakeholders in the management of the establishment to be more vigilant,” the SG stated. “She also counseled that the students should not be excluded but that they should be more assisted,” especially by the guidance counselors who should “strengthen their role of helping students because of family situations that can be difficult for both”.
It should be recalled that police had arrested eight female students from the Ekounou institution, aged 13 to 16, on March 12, 2021, along with 7 male students of a private school, Le Bon Berger.
Security sources had said they were engaged in an orgy after consuming drugs and other narcotic substances.
The girls were later released after auditions, while a judicial investigation is said to have been opened against the boys for “embezzlement and corruption of minors, possession and illicit consumption of drugs and lack of identity card”
Their arrest, which made rounds on social networks, was not the first of its kind. Earlier on March 4, about 50 students were arrested in Kumba, South West region after being caught in the act of having an orgy and consuming drugs. A few days before, another set of students in Douala were allegedly reprimanded after engaging in similar actions.
On March 1, a sex tape that went viral involving students of the GBHS Kribi, in the South region caused indignation within the education community and public opinion. Fourteen students notably; ten girls and four boys out of the 20 spotted in this pornographic video were permanently excluded from the school, according to the officials.
By Ringnwi Joy
Yaounde: Minister Nalova Lyonga rules out exclusion of students accused of participating in sex ‘party’
