Towards successful back to school in September:

Catch-up holiday classes gather steam in SW region

-The classes organized here and there in K’ba, L’be, Buea, Mamfe take place in morning and afternoon shifts

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Kumba

In what can be interpreted as ignoring the calls for schools boycott in September, parents and teachers in the SW in general and Kumba in particular have intensified special catch-up holiday classes to prepare their kids for the 2017/2018 school year beginning September. Some parents who spoke to The Median said they cannot jeopardize the future of their children by keeping them back at home just because of the Anglophone problem.

                According to one of the parents in Kumba, Mrs. AgborBessem Florence, the catch-up classes will help rekindle the learning spirit in the children for at least two months before schools resume in September. She regretted that most children have engaged in drug abuse and other distractions that risk increasing their involvement in crime in the near future if they are continuously kept at home against their wish. She iadded that many little girls have become pregnant due to idling around in the quarters for over seven months.

                Though AgborBessem indicated that the presence of the children at home has been helpful to some parents especially those who are farmers and petit traders, she at once noted that depriving the children of their right to education is criminal and even a sin. She called on those instilling fear in the minds of parents and students to stop doing so, so that schools can effectively resume in September.

                Mr. Atem Simon, another parent in kumba, noted that the only way out for the students is to intensify preparatory and catch up holiday classes for them as it will help them regain most of what they lost in the past six months that they were out of school.

                Speaking to this reporter, one of the school teachers who preferred anonymity indicated that the holiday classes that they have organised is divided into two shifts; the morning shift which runs from 7am to midday and the afternoon shift from 1pm to 5pm. To him all those who attend such catch up holiday classes will face little or no difficulty in the next class because the lessons are all focused on what was supposed to be taught which was not done as a result of the Anglophone impasse.

                It should be recalled that such intensified catch up holiday classes in Kumba and other towns in the South West is coming at a time when most mission schools and some government schools have all begun admissions into various classes in their institutions.