Authorities have tightened security around schools as well as stepping up the sensitisation of pupils and parents.

“The phenomenon was scary and we could not fold our arms and watch parents and pupils in despair for something that could be redressed,” explained Lydie Bissa, Headmistress of L’école primaire et maternelle les Dégoudis, Montée Jouvence, Mendong-Yaounde. The school has put in place preventive measures to ensure that people who loiter around the school premises to seize textbooks from pupils returning from school are put to shame.

Apart from making sure that guards at the entrance to the school compound are on constant lookout for people loitering around the fence, school authorities have also put in place a system whereby stationery and textbooks of all pupils are kept in school. But not every school is capable of implementing such measures. It requires much diligence and finance, an impediment to many schools. This notwithstanding, many schools are adopting other measures to cope with the phenomenon. “We have guards who make sure pupils who board taxis are accompanied home every school day. The only problem we face is with pupils who are left to themselves by parents,” officials of Bilingual African Star School, Montée Jouvence, Mendong-Yaounde, said. Other measures include sensitising pupils on the need not to open up to unknown people. “It has become a sing-song everyday as we assemble for morning devotion,” some school authorities hinted. Most of them however agreed that it is difficult to control the children. Herculean as it is, school authorities say parents have a great role to play. “We advise our pupils to shout or even cry aloud in case an unknown person meets them away from school and tries to get them into a conversation,” Bissa further explained.