About 80 primary and nursery schools within the Buea Urban Constituency have received didactic material from the Member of Parliament, MP, Hon. Arthur Ekeke Lisinge, during his evaluation tour on the effective take-off of schools.

The tour, which was undertaken on September 16 and 17, also had as objective to take note of problems faced by Basic Education schools so as to strategise and find solutions.

These didactic materials include exercise books, chalk, cardboard papers, pens, math’s sets, erasers, rulers, pencils and blackboard dusters. The expedition took the MP to Tole, Bomaka, Mile 16, Muea, Great Soppo, Buea Town, Dibanda, Mile 14, Bonduma, Bokwaongo, Molyko, among other places.

It was observed during the tour that a majority of mission and Government schools had numerical strength but lacked infrastructure. Meanwhile, private institutions had the infrastructure but limited enrollment. According to the head teachers of the mission and Government schools, the lack of infrastructure is due to insufficient funds.

Meanwhile, the head teachers of private schools attributed their low enrollment to stumpy public awareness. Apart from infrastructural constraints, head teachers complained of blackmail by competitors, ex-teachers, stagnant enrollment, non-complying parents, high taxes, inadequate running funds, competition, water shortage and more.

A head teacher told The Post that: “Last year, before school closing, a teacher who was transferred because of misconduct, carried out an anti-campaign on the school before leaving. The teacher told pupils not to come back because the school will not go operational this year. This deceit had a great impact on the school as we, so far, registered only about 70 pupils.”

Meanwhile, some schools have recorded tremendous increase in enrollment as expressed by the head teacher of a lay private school who attributed the rise to their drastic reduction of school fees both in the daily and boarding sections.

The tour was appreciated by all head teachers as the first of its kind in the Buea Urban constituency, while they requested for more of such visits.

In an interview with Lisinge, he said it should have been poor not knowing if children within his constituency have actually resumed school. He promised to resolve some, if not all, challenges he saw in schools in his own way. “Solving a problem starts by knowing the problem.

Now I have seen these schools and I know their challenges; all I pray for is long life, so that, I can equip these schools in my own little way,” Lisinge noted.

Asked why he left out Secondary and Higher Education sectors, he replied that the Basic sector was just a stepping stone in the activities he has to carry out during his mandate and that he still has many years to help the other sectors.

According to a retired senior civil servant, Jacob Ngale Kinge, the initiative is a laudable one and should be emulated by other MPs.

“This is the first MP who has thought of Basic Education and I consider this as an act of faith. When former President Ronald Regan of USA was interviewed by journalists on what sector to prioritize for the American community, he said the first sector was education; the second sector education and the third sector still education.

This means a lot. What the MP has done by not considering only Government schools, but also private and mission schools, merits the admiration of the population that voted him,” Ngale stated.