Back-to-school: Ndu Mayor, MP, elite boost effective kickoff with didactics.

Efforts made by the municipal authority and lawmaker, alongside other elite of the Subdivision, to encourage children go to school in the area, have hugely paid off. 

School resumption campaigns carried out by the Mayor and MP, added to donation of didactics to pupils and students, education stakeholders and administrative authorities have attested, hugely contributed to the massive resumption of classes in the Subdivision Monday September 4. 

Elite of the Subdivision, it should be said, had joined forces with the Ndu Council to donate school materials worth 8,000,000 FCFA, to school children. 

The Ndu Council, under Mayor Abdou Karfon Borno, had also supported some 100 holiday jobbers of the council, with 5,000,000 FCFA, to enable them easily resume classes. 

For her part, the MP for Ndu, Hon Mbongnyor Naomi Ngando, prior to the resumption, distributed didactic materials to hundreds of pupils and students, urging them to go to school. 

Though Ndu Subdivision is among the areas highly affected by the ongoing armed conflict in the two Anglophone Regions, elite of the area are doing their utmost to ensure children of the area are not deprived of education.

Effective kickoff of classes in Ndu

Despite the two-week separatist-imposed lockdown in the restive North West and South West Regions, to mar smooth kickoff of classes, resumption has so far been effective in Ndu Subdivision. 

On Tuesday September 5, 2023, several schools in the administrative unit went operational for the new school year. 

Schools in the locality of Ntumbaw near Ngarbuh, one of the heavily affected areas in the Region, recorded encouraging number of students, who showed up on the first day of school, eager to learn. 

A delegation, led by the Divisional Officer, DO, of Ndu Subdivision, accompanied by the First Deputy Mayor for Ndu Council, the Fon of Ntumbaw and some other administrators, toured the various schools in Ntumbaw.

This was to monitor the effectiveness of classes in the area and to encourage pupils and students to shun fear and continue going to school.

Officials hailed the encouraging enrolment of students on first day of school. "There was one hundred percent schools resumption in Ntumbaw with encouraging enrolment on this first day, for both Nursery, Primary and Secondary schools," said an official. 

As for other parts of the Subdivision, schools in the villages of Mbarse and Mbiyeh also reopened, though timidly. 

In Ndu Centre, only Government Bilingual High School Ndu and Government High School Talla had resumed with 10 and 32 students respectively. 

Joseph Merick Baptist College Ndu had resumed two weeks earlier, though not on its campus. For security purposes, authorities had decided to relocate to ensure the wellbeing of students. 

Government Technical College Sop and Government Primary School Sop had no staff member on the first day of school. 

Some school children could be spotted on campus cleaning the classes and waiting for their teachers. 

A parent and former Parents Teachers Association, PTA, Chairperson of Government Technical College, Sop, took the challenge to carryout registration into the school. 

Speaking to our source, he called on teachers to resume duty as students and pupils are waiting and eager to learn. 

"We are supposed to resume today, following the academic year 2023/24 but to my greatest surprise, from the registration, I have this number here. I was doing that as a parent and former PTA Chairperson of this school," the parent appealed. 

“…I think that if the teachers, principal, chief of work and other teachers could come, the other children will see them and rush for classes to begin immediately,” he said, noting that children of the area are now eager to learn. 

By Clinton Tumenta - Journalism student on internship