Cameroon: High illiteracy rate among girls – UNICEF report

UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, has revealed that there is a higher illiteracy rate among girls, especially in the northern provinces of Cameroon.

By Yemti Harry Ndienla

Isatou Mbatibou, UNICEF representative in Cameroon, made the revelation during the launching of a sensitisation campaign on the education of the girl child which took place in Yaounde, Cameroon recently.
According to UNICEF statistics boys are given preference over the girls in the Northern provinces when it comes to sending children to school.
Isatou further disclosed that only 40 girls out of 100 attend primary school as compared to 60 boys even though there are more girls than boys in the general population.
The UNICEF country boos for Cameroon underscored the need for the people of the Northern provinces to abandon traditional practices that require girls to stay home to be prepared for marriage rather than going to school.
On this score Isatou Mbatibou suggested that a sub department in charge of the education of the girl child be created in the ministry of Basic Education.
Cameroon’s minister of Basic Education, Haman Adama, underscores the fact that failure to educate a girl child is a violation of one of her fundamental human rights. While pledging the support of her ministry to UNICEF, Haman Adama, called on all administrative, municipal, traditional and religious authorities to join UNICEF in the fight against illiteracy in the Northern provinces in particular and Cameroon as a whole.
It should be noted here that one of the goals of UNICEF is to provide education and equality to all children by the year 2015.