Officials of the North West Regional Assembly have disclosed that the region needs at least some FCFA 305 million in order to revamp its secondary and vocational education sector hitherto considered the most vibrant sector of the region.
The amount was disclosed by Jude Waindim, Questor of the said body. He was speaking during the third day of their extraordinary session in Bamenda which focused on voting and adopting the maiden budget of the structure.
Waindim explained that the said amount will be used for "rehabilitation of destroyed classrooms in all the 7 divisions through intensive labour approach, promotion of literacy, promotion of technical and vocational training, feasibility studies for the creation of 1 regional vocational training centre and rehabilitation of vocational training centres vandalized in all 7 divisions of the Northwest region".
Realizing the move according to the President of the Regional Council Executive, Prof. Fru Angwafor III would involve synergy with the NW Regional Delegation of Secondary education that has the necessary statistics and data needed to improve on the sector.
In an earlier presentation that was made by the North West Regional Delegate of Secondary Education, Ngwang Roland, captured the state of affairs of secondary education sector in the region prior to the crisis and the actual state of affairs as at the moment.
Ngwang disclosed that school enrolment in the region dropped from 220,000 students in 2016 to 24,350 in 2019 while the number of operational schools dropped from 558 in 2016 to 170 presently with just 43 640 present in classrooms in the 170 operational schools. He said schools he noted are only found within urban areas while most suburbs have gone for long without any school.
He said kidnapped for ransom, torture and even killing of teachers has worsened the pathetic situation with some 87 teachers already kidnaped this academic year. He further revealed that 287 students were kidnapped in 2018 while 29 of them have fallen in the hands of armed fighters this year further discouraging school attendance.
The NW MINESEC Delegate said the worsening armed conflict has forced 6,839 teachers to be out of work this academic year alone with FCFA 26 billion collected as salaries for no work done in 12 months. Of the 1584 regular hours, 360 hours are being lost to ghost towns, lockdown hours and other separatist imposed orders, making learning more difficult.
By Doh Bertrand Nua
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