Fako Councils receive GIZ, PEW schools aid

Councils in Fako Division recently received donations of teaching materials worth FCFA 1.1 million.

The assistance for elementary public schools in the Division will be distributed to the beneficiaries next academic year.

The items comprised of registers for schools, packets of chalk, pens, pencils, some medications for the schools’ First Aid boxes, sporting items such as balls, nets, among others.

Benjamin Serkfem, the CEO of the Buea-based NGO, People Earthwise, PEW, said the items were all prizes donated by the German Development Fund, GIZ’s PADDL programme. The number of items donated were valued at FCFA 1 million and the Tiko Council got the lion’s share, followed by the Limbe II Council and the Buea Council.

Serkem said the criteria for the award follows a study that was carried out in the said councils in November 2014. The study was aimed at seeing how best the Councils, the public primary schools within their municipalities, the inspectorates of basic education and other stakeholders involved in the collection, management and distribution of the minimum package assistance to schools, were going about it.

According to the PEW and GIZ findings, the Tiko Council and their Inspectorate came firstin exercising transparency, proper management and accountability.

He said the recipient Councils shall have to keep the material and only distribute them at beginning of the 2015/2016 academic year.

He said the idea of GIZ and PEW, with the support of another NGO, CEFAN, is to ignite a spirit of cordial collaboration or co-management of the assistance that Government dispatches at the beginning of each school year, through Councils, to schools within every municipality, following the decentralisation system.

“Since the institution of the minimum package, there have been a lot of issues. First of all, in understanding the regulatory text, not all stakeholders are in possession of it,” he said.

According to him, through decentralisation, Government has empowered Councils to be the ones to carry on with the provision of certain services to schools within their municipalities, the minimum package being one of them.

“There are many actors in the chain implementing and managing that provision or management of the material to schools.Sometimes, because of some confusion or lack of information or divergence of expectations, there have been unsatisfactory deliveries. This has caused some schools to benefit from these materials late.”

On behalf of GIZ-PADDL, Mathew Diffeutaines said he was happy with the outcome of the research and the Councils responses.

“I am very glad to be among you and glad to represent the German Cooperation in Cameroon.”

He said they have been working in Centre, East, Far North and the West Regions in trying to support programmes in the basic education sector. He added that the support to PEW was the first in the Southwest Region by the PADDLprogramme which is the German Development platform aimed at supporting local development.

“I am delighted; overwhelmed,” the 3rd Deputy Mayor for Tiko, EnjemaBisong, said.

“Whatever we have received today, we are going to ensure that it reaches the right destination,” she further stated, while asking businessmen and educational partners within the Tiko augment the material so that all schools, for the next school year, can get, at least, something.