CAMEROON: BACK TO SCHOOL 2020 AT LAST

Thousands of young Cameroonian have finally started school this Monday 5^th October in some parts of the country amidst coronavirus protective measures after an exceptionally 7 month long vacation. In school resumption that coincides with the world teacher’s day, the government recommends protective measures such that teachers should take their covid test before starting school. A lot of other measures are recommended to all school in the country. The government demands that all schools should have a wash hand point, all students should have their masks, a preventive distance should be respected among the students and above all, students should pass through a thermoflrash before entering the school campus.

However the question many ask is if this rules will be respected by the students themselves. Owing to the fact that they have not seen each other for long and there is an enthusiasm to go close to a classmate or a friend. Pnews checking around noticed that not all schools are observing the barrier measures prescribed by the authorities. Some do not have wash hand points, some students do not even have masks on. This shows that the coronavirus pandemic is less frightful in Cameroon like it used to be the case in the past. Though it is springing back in some countries in Europe, in the likes of France, Spain, Germany and Italy.

This school year is very exceptional because for a first time there is going to be a shift system. Some student will come to school in the morning and others will come in the afternoon because the government has given measures that the enrolments in classrooms should not be more that 50 student. This is to respect a social distance and try to stop the spread of the covid-19 pandemic.

In the other hand, the ambazonian secessionist have accepted this time around that schools should go on in the troubled Anglophone region, though they have given some conditions, such as not teaching the French history to the students, all government schools should become community school. As such it is not surprising to see that the traditional Monday ghost town rule has been violated in some areas of the region in the like of Buea, with few taxes moving up and down with students in them.