Over 10,000 refugee children in school in Adamawa East

The UNICEF-European Union project has enroled over 10,000 refugee children from Central African Republic in schools to pursue their education.

Cameroon Tribune’s reporter received a resounding, “Good afternoon, Sir!,” from pupils on Sunday, March 1, 2015, as he stepped into one of the classrooms in the Borgop Refugee Camp for Central African Republic, CAR, in the Mberé Division of Adamawa Region.

With the support of Cameroonian authorities, the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, under the FCFA 230 million ‘EU Children of Peace Project’ funded by the European Union, EU, has since July 2014 enabled over 10,000 CAR children to receive formal education.

Accompanying a team of media representatives to the Borgop and Ngam Refugee Camps in the Adamawa Region and Gado Badzere Camp in the East Region over the weekend, UNICEF officials explained that the number of pupils was just about half of the target of 19,000 enrolment in Temporary Learning and Protection Centres, TLPCs or emergency classes in refugee camps.

Under the project, which is implemented by Plan Cameroon, UNICEF has constructed classrooms, recruited students and pays trained Cameroonian Grade I teachers as well as offers stationery to pupils.

According to UNICEF, the project, which comes to an end in August 2015, has been a huge success as over 80 per cent of the CAR refugee children in TLPCs had hitherto never been to school.

Thus, their fleeing the conflict in their country to Cameroon has afforded them the opportunity to receive some Western education, in addition to Koranic lessons for the mostly Mbororo Moslem refugee children. “Parents, after much sensitisation and persuasion, now understand the importance of Western education for their children,” explained a UNICEF local official.

“Government educational authorities from the East and Adamawa Regions have been very supportive of the project by holding monthly meetings and evaluation sessions with partners in spite of their huge commitments elsewhere,” admitted the official.

The classes range from pre-nursery to nursery and the Francophone equivalent of Classes One and Two. On the other hand, pupils from Classes Three to Six are sent to regular primary schools near the camps after a vigorous assessment of their level by Cameroonian authorities.

Bernard Neossi, Education Coordinator for Plan Cameroon for Ngam and Borgop Refugee Camps, explained that management committees, made up of refugee representatives, take charge of each TLPC.

Neossi hastened to add that, Temporary Learning and Protection Centres are not conventional schools per se but meant to prepare traumatised and often below average CAR children for joining the regular Cameroonian elementary school system.