Education is a vital ingredient in community development and poverty eradication. Education after primary school is still the exception rather than the rule in the North West, due to the increased costs associated with attending high school.

Formal education

Some of the barriers to formal education are:

• a shortage of teachers
• a shortage of teaching resources
• inadequate classrooms
• lack of access to stationery for students
• lack of access to high school fees (including required books and uniforms)

BERUDEP work in the following areas to increase formal education in the North West:

• providing volunteer teachers
• providing resources for families who cannot afford to send their children to school
• providing free training in agriculture and natural resources when requested
  

Informal education

Some of the barriers to informal education are:

• illiteracy of adults
• a lack of courses available
• access to costs associated with further training

BERUDEP work in the following areas to increase informal education in the North West:

• training in a variety of areas including literacy, agriculture, income generation 
• trainings are free or low cost

An excellent example of a BERUDEP initiative providing a solution to the educational needs of the people is BERUDEP’s center for Rehabilitation and Education in Njinikom (CREN). CREN is an initiative which seeks to help the most affected and most neglected groups of local society in improving their standard of living. It is one of the very first projects of this type in North-West Province of Cameroon.

Read a report about a project completed by BERUDEP and international volunteers in early 2009 on an under-funded government high school in Mbingo.