An order from the Ministry of Secondary Education banning their use is yet to yield desired results.

The confiscation of handsets, summoning of parents and the meting out of severe sanctions, school authorities in Yaounde say, do not even scare students from bringing electronic gadgets to school. “This shows the magnitude of the problem faced by school officials nowadays,” said the Principal of Government High School Biyem-Assi, Yaounde, Eugene Mat Ekoumou Tsimi. The principal likens the use of handsets in school by students to drug addiction.

The increase in falling moral values in schools, fanned by high level of corruption and moral decadence, has partly been blamed on the use of handsets. “We have confiscated phones from students watching pornographic films during lessons while others have been caught cheating via Short Message Services (SMS) in class and official examinations,” Ekoumou Tsimi disclosed. Brandishing two seized handsets with names of culprits and examination hall numbers, Ekoumou Tsimi said such cases account for over 90 per cent of severe cases brought before the disciplinary council of the institution. “During one of our checks, we caught one student with four handsets. His parents were summoned but they never showed up and the student finally abandoned school,” he explained. The cases are double-fold, and he said the phenomenon has led to the discovery of shady love relationships between some young students and rich old men in town. He recounted the case of a 13-year-old, Form One student who was offered a handset worth over FCFA 90,000 by a lover. When the parents of the student were summoned, it was realised that the phone served for appointments between the two lovers and was never taken home by the student. Some students have openly told teachers that they will prefer to be sent away from classes than stay without their phones.

At Government Bilingual Practising High School, the situation is not different. The Discipline Master, Marcellus Abebema, said the situation is worrisome with students going as far as threatening teachers. Students in both schools are said to invite thieves to burgle offices where confiscated electronic gadgets are kept. The cases are many, he said, but their wish is that another ministerial order be put in place, whereby phones confiscated are destroyed immediately.