Fame Ndongo complicates Biya’s Laptop
largesse
-Fears rife many students might be left out
of the project
 |
| Laptop |
Reports say the 500.000 laptops which is
within the framework of the “Special Youth Plan” promised University Students
for the 2016/2017 academic year by the Head of State, Paul Biya on Feb 2016
will be made available to benefactors in no distant future.
A
convention to set the initiative in motion was signed on July 27, 2017 in
Yaounde between Jacques FaméNdongo, Minister of Higher Education and Chancellor
of Academic Orders, and a Chinese company, Sichuan Télécom Construction
Engineering Co.Ltd that is expected to supply the laptops.
The
project worth over FCFA 75 billion and dubbed “one student, one computer”
according to MINSUP is a move by President Paul Biya to help young university
students secure access to modern day digital economy.
More
than a year the promise, speculations were rife that the laptops might just
remain an empty political promise like others.
But
the recent meeting between the Minister of Higher Education Chairman of the Ad
Hoc Committee of the Management of the « E-National Higher Education Network »
project, and the focal points of State Universities, to put in place the
donation of the promised laptops to Cameroonian students in State Universities,
as well as those in Private Higher Institutes of Education (PHIE), for the
2016/2017 academic year, has put the speculations to rest.
However,
there are fears that most of the students in the South West and North West
regions may not receive the said laptops given that most of them are not going
to school as a result of the current crisis that have rocked the two Anglophone
regions.
Although
unconfirmed reports say they has been a significant increase in the number of
students in the two state universities in these regions, the doors of most of
the Private Higher Institutes of Education that are expected to benefit from
this presidential largesse have remained closed.
According
to a release made public at the end of the meeting, to be eligible, students
must be duely registered for the 2016/2017 Academic year.
The
release also reveals that nine computer network centres shall be created and
interconnected to facilitate the production of a biometric list of students
including those in all the 215 recognised Private Higher Institutions in the
country.
A
biometric list including the students' ID cards the release explains is
expected to be presented at the Ministry of Higher Education for appropriate
verifications by competent Service at the Ministry.
It
also filtered from the meeting that the Chinese company in charge of
manufacturing the laptops with the support of the Cameroon Government is
satisfactorily working towards validating the totality of administrative,
financial and technical prerequisites necessary for the harmonious execution of
the “delicate and complex activity”.
No comments:
Post a Comment