Cameroon: Over 400 000 Pupils To Abandon Studies For Lack Of Birth Certificates In Far North

Even though issues related to difficulties encountered nationwide in obtaining a birth certificate fell among major topics that came under scrutiny at the November session of the parliament at the National Assembly, statistics from the far North region of still indicates much still has to be done.

Hundreds of thousands of school going kids in examination classes in the region are said to be at the verge of abandoning school for lack of the vital document. As reported by state-broadcaster, CRTV, there are over 950 000 pupils in the region and more than 400 000 of them do not have the document.

The disturbing figures was further confirm by Ousmanou Ahadou Garga, Sub Director of General Affairs at the Regional Delegation of Basic Education while highlighting the cases of those to sit end-of-year exams.

“We have about 35 000 children who are either in class six of CM II to write their end of year examinations but they don’t have birth certificates,” Ousmanou said while warning of the dangers of the kids abandoning classes if nothing is done.

“If nothing is done, they might abandon their classes. This means that we have to be at the bottom of Cameroon as far as the classification is concern,” he warned while calling on all to come on board.

On his part, the head of the far North Regional Bureau of BUNEC says they are doing all the can to get the population aware of the importance of obtaining the vital document for their children. “…we train actors involve in civil status registration, sensitize people to declare births and we also show them the procedure,” he said.

It was disclosed during the November session of Parliament chaired by Senior Deputy Speaker, Hon. Hilarion Etong, that 1 785 668 million children representing 32.12% out of 4 942 000 million registered school going kids nationwide do not have birth certificates.

Hilarion said the situation is made worst despite numerous measures and actions taken by government and the civil society, especially the lack of interest in routinely drawing up birth and death certificates, poverty and the remoteness of certain areas which makes it difficult to give birth in a hospital; the lack of awareness among the rural population on the compulsory nature of the declaration of births within set deadlines among a catalogue of other problems.

Minister George Elanga Obam in a presentation during the session disclosed that there are ongoing process at his department to modernise the civil status registration alongside a special plan to provide 500 000 children with birth certificates in the crisis-hit regions of North West, South West and Far North by the end of 2021.

Also, results of studies carried out by the Ministry of Public Health presented during the session indicated that only 67% of births are registered in the country with at least 50% of babies still delivered at home.

General Statistics

Generally, statistics from the National Assembly indicated that there are 275 675 pupils in Adamawa region with 112 037 of them (40.64%) without birth certificates, 957 909 in the Centre with 210 299 (22%), without the document, 375 999 in the East with 141 667 (37.67%) without, 950 023 in the Far North with 402 100 (42%) without birth certificates, same for 633 537 in Littoral with 295 481 (46.64%) without, 554 240 in the North with 294 472 (53%) without the vital document, 29 862 in North West with just 1744 (5.84%) without it, 655 083 in West with only 24 754 (3.77%) without and 158 097 in the South West with 64 114 (40.5%) without birth certificates.