Interview: Challenges and Responses in the Face of Attacks on Education in North-West South-West regions of Cameroon

The North-West South-West (NWSW) Regions crisis in Cameroon is a complex and protracted humanitarian crisis and is currently assessed as the second most neglected displacement crisis in 2023, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council's latest study. The security situation is volatile due to clashes between non-state armed groups (NSAGs) and State security forces, as well as NSAG attacks against the civilian population that has affected the population for the last 7 years (since 2016). The 2024 Cameroon Humanitarian Needs Overview estimates that 596,000 school-aged children need humanitarian assistance, including 156,000 internally displaced children. Due to both the insecurity in the region and education being seen as a target in this conflict, schools and children are often at risk and have been attacked. Currently, classes are disrupted for at least 6 days every 30 days due to general insecurity, the presence of armed groups and imposed lockdown/ghost town, according to the Cameroon Education Cluster (CEC)’s 2024 JENA). Attacks on education have, therefore, been identified as a key interlinked education-protection need in the CEC 2023-2025 Strategy, and the Education Cluster has been piloting an approach to advance this specific workstream.

This video was produced in the first half of 2024

Roger Buguzi and Emmaculate Ikome, Education Cluster Coordinators speak about the situation in Cameroon and their work on attacks on education.

The situation in the NWSW Regions has been deteriorating in the last 8 years. What is the state of the education in emergencies in NWSW Cameroon in 2024?

Emmaculate Ikome and Roger Buguzi: The crisis in the NWSW regions has evolved quite a lot in terms of education in the last 8 years. On the one hand, the education situation has improved: more schools are opening, more communities are accepting education and are welcoming sending their children to school, regardless of the risk, and even more children are still willing to go to schools if this is possible. On the other hand, there are still significant attacks on education (40 attacks recorded by the Education Cluster as of June 2024), through for instance lockdowns/ghost towns ordered by NSAG during specific times of the year. For instance, a lockdown is declared for two weeks at the beginning of the school year to protest against education. Besides, on average, 41% of schools are not functioning in the NWSW regions, with quite some disparities in percentages across the different divisions.

What are the specificities of the response being coordinated by the Cameroon Education Cluster and what are the key challenges?

Another challenge is regarding the funding: there is little or no funding coming our way.  (Editor’s note: while in 2021, only 25% of the funding needs were met, the figure dropped to 1% in 2023, according to the GEC Data Repository) Cameroon is an underfunded context. For four years now, we have not had any CERF funding whereas education is at the center of the crisis, so it impacts the delivery of the educational response. Also, as the cluster is activated at a sub-national level, focusing only on the NWSW regions of Cameroon, we have the participation of more than 90% of local actors as the cluster’s partners. This impacts the funding available, as the local partners cannot directly access many international funds and so, many activities planned by them as part of the response framework cannot be implemented.

Thirdly, there is an accessibility issue: in certain areas, we cannot access the communities, because of both security reasons and physical barriers: there are no roads. Even though partners are implementing activities in 12 of 13 Divisions, there are still some hard-to-reach areas where roads do not permit us to approach, which prevents children from accessing education. This physical constraint also results in difficulties in monitoring the actions implemented by local partners.

Attacks on education continued in 2024, with teachers and students being abducted and school premises set on fire, in addition to the regular Monday lockdown days. How is the Cameroon Education Cluster strengthening its work on attacks on Education? Which steps have already been taken?

Emmaculate Ikome and Roger Buguzi: We have an existing Attacks on Education Reference Group, composed of Education Cluster members and we have been collecting data on attacks on education since 2023, which helped us to conduct advocacy with communities, education authorities and other decision-makers at the national level.

We are trying to make sure that we reach all the communities, and at the end of May 2024 we conducted two workshops on attacks on education in both the SW and the NW regions. These workshops were attended by cluster partners, the education authorities, and other actors including also the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the Child Protection Area of Responsibility, which deals with the grave violations against children, including attacks on schools. One of the aims of the workshop is to have an extended Reference Group so that we can reach out to the communities and connect information from everywhere which will help us to strengthen our advocacy efforts, tailor the response framework and focus our resource mobilization.

Prior to [the most recent] workshop [in August 2023], we have trained some partners on the whole framework, including the Safe Schools Declaration [endorsed in Cameroon in 2018], how to carry out activities related to attacks on education, map out areas occupied by either of the parties in conflict and overall, brainstorm around ways to put efforts around keeping school safe into action. Now, following all these efforts, we plan to continue this work by strengthening our existing Attacks on Education Reference Group involving more relevant stakeholders and through the way we are collecting data on attacks.

What are the next steps for the Cameroon Education Cluster and its partners to continue this effort?

Emmaculate Ikome and Roger Buguzi: Right now, we are strengthening the localization effort in relation to attacks on education. As most of the education cluster partners are local actors, from national and local organizations, we want them to be part Attacks on Education Reference Group. We are strengthening their capacities to make sure that they understand both the tools we are using and the context so they can continue doing an active collection of data and they know how to manage but also to share and use the data for first advocacy purposes.

The whole idea behind integrating other sectors, such as child protection, is to ensure that it goes beyond; we minimize duplication of efforts as much as possible and we are hoping that this integration prevents us from being sustainable in this new venture, the new plan is to have a harmonized platform for all reporting and compiling data on attacks on education.

Why is it important for donors should donors fund EiE in Cameroon?

Emmaculate Ikome and Roger Buguzi: The crisis continues to displace people, including unaccompanied children, carrying the burden of taking care of their siblings, which is not the life that anyone wants for their child. Coupled with the attacks on education, it traumatizes them and practically almost wipes away the future that they must have had for themselves since 2016. In the NWSW region, children have been out of school for seven years now, which means that the child who was 7 years old when the crisis started is now 14 years old and, has never been to school and is now 14 years old, which means that he or she will never have a chance to go back to primary school.

Funding EiE intervention in Cameroon is the opportunity to give our children a shot at being in school, a shot at having a normal life, and give their communities a chance at developing and improving. It is important to support education because we want children to have good and bright future. Without education, building back better and lasting peace will not be possible and all other investments in humanitarian actions will ultimately be washed away.

Photo credits, in order of appearance

• This Government Primary School in Quibekwu has 6-classrooms and has been abandoned since the ban on schools at the onset of the crisis. Photo credit:  ©MbonwehWomenDevelopmentAssociation/2024/Ndobegang
• Efi, a 10 year old boy, listening to an educational radio program, in the village of Small Ikange, in the southwest of Cameroon. Children learn through a radio education program in the village. There is no school in the vicinity but thanks to this program the children have a chance of education. Since 2016, attacks on schools and abductions of teachers and students by non-state armed groups have led to the closure of many schools in the Northwest and Southwest of Cameroon  ©UNICEF/UNI405805/Dejongh
• Kangaroo Enold, a 12 years old boy, at the market of Buea, in the south west of Cameroon. ©UNICEF/UN0420347/Dejongh