Some Children stranded at GS Old Town trying to find their way
7am, Tuesday 17th May 2022, a pupil is stranded at the entrance to the Government Practicing School Old Town Bamenda, looking tired, she was asking the location of the primary school at GMI.
Parents who had left their houses as early as 6am, afraid of a supposed lockdown watched in awe. Telling the pupil, you will have to trek through commercial avenue, Food market and climb the fish pond hill.
She was helpless but had to make the journey since the first paper begins at 8am.
This is how children sitting the 2022 Government Common Entrance Examination have to suffer to sit an exam they have been preparing for 6 years.
Parents who live further from examination centres either sent the kids to live with relatives close by, rent hotels where they will stay with the kids or need to trek with the children to the centre.
In 2019 just like in 2021, most parents stayed in the centre all through the examination. This to be sure of the safety and security of their kids.
"We cannot have illiterates because of one crisis which is taking us nowhere." one parent hinted.
Bamenda commercial Avenue on a Tuesday Morning
Bamenda, once known as the epicenter of quality Education in Cameroon have seen school going children suffer brutality, maiming and kidnaps in their quest to gain quality education.
Found in the English-speaking parts of Cameroon, Bamenda has been in a crisis since 2016 championed by Teachers and lawyers who called for reforms in the Educational and legal systems. The crisis was since hijacked by Pro-separatists fighters using education as a yard stick to call for independence of a country known as Ambazonia.
Some parents kept their children at home for sometime but most have since regained the classrooms in the quest of quality Education.
The Government Common Entrance Examination gives the pupils access to Government schools after obtaining their First School Living Certificate.
By
Ndi Tsembom Elvis
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