A primary school teacher suspected of having sexually abused almost all the girls in his classroom has been arrested in Douala

According to the girls’s testimonies, the paedophile teacher took them in groups. He touched them and forced them to practice oral sex to “have wisdom.”

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands that the principal and a teacher of the school knew about it, but did not speak about it to avoid a scandal.

The arrest of the paedophile teacher has revived the debate on sexual abuse of minors. For the past two days, the local media have been enjoying it and internet users have condemned the teacher.

Some demand that it be delivered to the mob.

“He is a demon he deserves death for the good example of others“, writes a user.

Others believe that children are no longer safe anywhere.

“Our children are no longer safe. Whether it’s in the church, in the neighborhoods or in our homes. We have to protect them,” said another internet user.

The teacher will be brought before a judge and faces ten years in prison.

By Rita Akana with files

I should be writing about and wishing you, our readers, a merry Christmas, but one particular headline has preoccupied my mind throughout the week;news report about 200 PhD holders protesting on the streets of Cameroon, over joblessness, left me wondering whether education is still the key to success as we have always been told.

The protestors, all doctorate holders, the highest rank in academia sat on the streets and painted a picture of hopelessness, with some even getting beaten and injured by the law enforcers as they expressed their anger after missing out on jobs in government universities.

In an interview with the BBC, the desperate academics said they had been volunteering in state universities for years yet when recruitment was done, jobs went to less educated applicants, according to Nanan Herman, the spokesperson of the protestors.

But that country’s Higher Education Minister, Jacques Fame Ndongo, insisted that the recruitment was based on merit. An ordinary Cameroonian speaking to the BBC said seeing PhD holders protesting over lack of jobs is the most uninspiring development for young people in school.

Proximity is one of the aspects that guide the news media; the news must feel close and relevant to the target audience of a particular media outlet. So how close and relevant is news about PhD holders protesting over joblessness in Cameroon, thousands of miles away from Kigali?    

Well, a fortnight ago in Kicukiro, Lynette, a 20-year old neighbour of mine came to me seeking advice on a decision she was about to make. In her senior six vacation, Lynette is contemplating to suspend plans to join University and take up a job that pays Rwf250,000 (US$300) a month.

An eloquent debater with aspirations of becoming a lawyer, Lynette is a brilliant young Rwandan girl and I was curious to hear her thought process. So, I asked her to first tell me the reasoning behind her decision before I could offer my own advice on the same.

“I believe that, ultimately, education is only a means to a job and an income; if I am able to secure employment now where many graduates, I know are still jobless, I think it would be unwise of me not to take the opportunity,” she told me.

That mindset is increasingly becoming popular among young people of Lynette’s age. They look at the so called highly educated adults in their community and they don’t get the inspiration they need, to follow in similar footsteps. Many have chosen business over further education.

My friend, Emmanuel never went past senior three but he has turned his childhood passion for cars into a thriving business. Having learned how to drive at an early age, he started off as a sales agent, pointing whoever wanted to buy or sell, in the right direction. He got me my first car.

Last year, he opened his own business, a car rental service and last month, he added a fourth car, to his growing fleet. The irony is, in the same town where a senior three leaver is succeeding at business, Aimable, a recent graduate of Business Administration from a local university is still struggling to find his first job, nearly two years after he graduated.

In October, Aimable sat for his tenth job interview which ended negatively, further increasing his desperation. There are many like Aimable, not just in Rwanda but in Africa at large. According to the World Bank, there will be nearly 400 million young jobless people on the continent within a decade, if governments don’t step up their efforts in creating meaningful jobs.

“But I believe that instead of crying on the streets, these PhD holders should be creating jobs for themselves and others who are less educated; this protest is a major vote of no confidence in our African education system, especially if the most educated cannot survive without a state job,” the Cameroonian local further told the BBC.

Actually, it is not entirely true that the most educated people can’t thrive in private enterprise. On a recent trip within the region, I was checked into Grand Global Hotel, a facility that is owned by a couple both of whom are PhD holders. The two still have their formal employment in senior roles and the hotel is just an additional source of income.

Three years ago, my friend’s uncle, who had successfully run to represent his constituency in his country’s parliament was kicked out of the role after it emerged his academic credentials were suspect. Now he’s set to graduate with a degree with intentions to reclaim his position.

“So, my dear Lynette, your reasoning holds water; you indeed need that job. But as someone who has two degrees, it would be selfish of me to tell you that education doesn’t matter; get your qualifications because opportunities will always show up but they must find you equipped.”

Culled from The New Times Rwanda

In the 2020 finance bill approved by parliament in Cameroon, the operating budget of the Ministry of Higher Education has increased by XAF13.4 billion (US$22.7 million) to XAF50.7 billion while its investment budget decreased by more than XAF10.2 billion. The reasons for this budgeting are still unknown but the presentation shows a real desire for change in higher education in the country, writes Idriss Linge for Business in Cameroon.

For university research, the budget is XAF11.6 billion and the stated objective is to increase the exploitation of research results on the priority development sectors of the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper within no more than two years. However, the budget does not indicate whether the university research budget will be allocated exclusively to public higher education or whether it will be extended to the private sector.

The integration of graduates from traditional higher education faculties is also been taken into account in the budget. An allocation of XAF8.1 billion is earmarked for it. With scientific and technological fields poorly equipped and literary studies disconnected from reality, the achievement of this objective must be monitored. Finally, XAF7.4 billion will be spent to increase the number of students in technological and vocational courses.

Source: University World News

The Cameroon government has shut down more than 260 schools that had been operating informally in the country’s francophone regions.

The schools had been opened to help absorb students fleeing the separatist uprising in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.

I travelled to Douala where around 100 unregistered institutions have been closed.

The pupils who have fled the fighting in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions have painful memories.

“I left Bamenda because there was a war. They were killing people and they were shooting guns,” says one student.

“We couldn’t study in Bamenda because of the crisis. Anytime we are in school, bullets falling on top our classrooms, gunshots everywhere,” another adds.

A mother, Kerin Kongdem, told me how hard it is to find a school.

“The first school was closed by the authorities because they said it wasn’t authorised. So we’ve had to find a new one this year – just to pay the registration fee was not easy for us,” she says.

The school she found was also operating illegally and is one of many that have opened to accommodate the influx of English speaking learners displaced from the north.

We visited one of the illegal schools and the owner declined to speak to us for fear of closure.

Critics of the government say it’s not offering any alternatives for the children when they close the schools.

But the official for secondary education in Doula’s Wouri district, Sylvestre Fils Moukalla, denies this.

“The Minister of Secondary Education gave Parent Teacher Associations the express authorisation to build more classrooms in various schools. These PTAs mobilised enormous resources to build new classrooms. As a result, the problem of the influx has been resolved. In the Wouri for instance, all the children have found a classroom,” he says.

Some of the newly displaced parents are turning to home tutors to make sure their children don’t have to go back a school year.

“Even to feed the children isn’t easy so I decided to get a private teacher to see how we can manage to educate these children at home. I have just pleaded with this teacher. I don’t have money. I pleaded that whatever I have, I would give him. It’s too difficult for us. We are suffering,” Claude Ngwa, a father of seven told me.

BBC

In Cameroon, five schools have reopened in the restive English-speaking regions after separatists shuttered them four years ago. The schools’ reopening comes after the government dispatched so-called “peace caravans” to discuss the outcome of a national dialogue aimed at resolving the country’s ongoing separatist crisis.

These are the voices of hundreds of school children, their parents and teachers at the campus of a government school in Tabekeng, a village in the English-speaking northwest region of Cameroon. Among the children who are happy to see their peers, teachers and institution after close to four years is 14-year-old Peter Moukeng. He says he has been longing for his education.

“I am tired of going to work in the cassava farm all the time. I want to go to school to become a nurse and help people who are wounded and suffering,” he said.

Three of the school’s 14 teachers are present. Geography teacher Godlove Tamfu says he decided to return after peace caravans sent by Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute to their localities convinced them that the government, in organizing a major national dialogue, was committed to solving the grievances of English speakers who constitute a minority in the country that also counts French as an official language.

“We are determined to send our children to school. There is nothing that is going to frighten us any longer and I think that any teacher who is ready, should come,” he said.

Tamfu, his colleagues, parents and the school children are asking for additional security around the campuses. They have created local militias to inform the police when people with questionable motives are in their village.

Markets too are become busier. Magdaleine Tebeu, a 51-year-old mother of five who lost her son and husband in the separatist war, says she decided to return to her poultry shop because her children need food. She says she cannot continue waiting for sporadic humanitarian assistance.

Tebeu says they urgently need peace because they are tired of the killings and the sufferings they have been subdued to for long. She says she cannot continue staying at home and being unable to take care of her family since her husband’s death.

The government says at least 200 of the more than 4,500 schools that were either sealed or occupied by separatist fighters have been reopened and troops have been deployed to protect the teachers and students from the separatists.

South West Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai says 30 percent of businesses that were closed in the towns have been reopened, but that the situation is a concern in most villages that fighters still occupy. He says people started returning to their businesses after the government organized the national dialogue.

“The South West region is recovering,” he said. “Many internally displaced persons are coming back to their villages. Activities are returning to some enterprises and businesses too seem to move well, so we have hope that the situation is really improving.”

Bilai says it is too soon to tell how many people have gone back to their villages. Separatists have on social media said the returns are possible because they have changed strategy and will only attack military posts and people caught collaborating with the central government in Yaounde, which the separatists describe as an annexation force.

Last month, Cameroon organized the national dialogue to solve the crisis and decided to give special status to the English-speaking regions. The government says parliament will vote this year on a law to determine the special status. The dialogue has also led to the release of more than 300 English speakers who were arrested and charged with terrorism.

Violence erupted in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions in 2016 when teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority.  
 
The government responded with a crackdown that sparked an armed movement for an independent, English-speaking state.

The separatists began to attack schools, kidnapping teachers and students, while vowing to make the regions ungovernable. The United Nations says the conflict has killed close to 3,000 people.

Source: VOA

More than 855 000 Cameroonian children are out of school following the failure by over 4 000 schools to open for the new academic year.

Schools remain closed because of the largely English-speaking North-West and South-West regions beset by conflict between state security and separatists demanding self-rule.

More than 4 100 primary and 744 secondary schools remain closed or have ceased operating, two months into the new academic year.

Fear of violence has kept parents from sending their children to school while at the same time blocking teachers and staff from reporting to work.

Among these children, almost 150 000 have been displaced from their homes, which increases their vulnerability and trauma.

Henrietta Fore, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director, said the minors subsequently faced a higher risk of recruitment by armed groups, child marriage, early pregnancy and other forms of exploitation and abuse.

“Thousands of children in Cameroon are living in fear. They need peace so that they can resume their education and reclaim their future,” she said.

In some areas where schools have been closed, community-run learning activities have been initiated to ensure that children do not miss out further on their education.

Fore urged communities, armed groups and government authorities to protect education in all its forms and enable children to learn in a safe and protective environment.

“Education must remain above politics,” she said.

English speaking communities allege marginalization by the government of President Paul Biya, which is dominated by French-speaking Cameroonians.

Source:  CAJ News

The Cameroon Forum for Medical and Paramedical Sciences, Camfomedics now has a new leader. The German-based Non-Governmental Organization recently celebrated its 25^th anniversary in the city of Essen. In this chat with the association’s new strongman, Dr Fonyuy Nyuyki, Camcordnews German Bureau Chief Tambe Ndip Arrah presents the man and his style  

Cameroon Concord News:  Goodbye Dr Ivo Azeh!!Welcome Dr. Fonyuy Nyuyki

Dr. Fonyuy Nyuyki: (laughs)Thank you, it´s always a pleasure sharing a conversation with you of the Cameroon Concord News Group

Cameroon Concord News: Let me begin by asking you Dr Fonyuy,What was unique about this 25^th Anniversary and African Health Day?

Dr. Fonyuy Nyuyki: It wasn´t all about medical examination and test but also beneficiary to the participants was the dishing out of professional medical advice on how to live a healthy life style. Bringing Africans together via health care forums and information sharing workshops is striving for a healthier longer life for our people.

Cameroon Concord News: Dr. Ivo Azeh has handed over the baton of command to you. Are you going to maintain the status quo or are you coming into Camfomedics leadership with a new idea?

Dr. Fonyuy Nyuyki: Ivo is a legend (laughing). Actually, you know, he has done an amazing job, as you saw on the farewell presentation that we did for him!  It´s was not all about praises because people spoke from their hearts and minds to express what they think about a man who brought honour and fame to Camfomedics

Of course there´s going to be permanency but we need to bring in some fresh concepts and revive some other things as I mentioned earlier during our general meeting session. There´s need to move Camfomedics forward. For instance, creating a lobby and mentoring group that will have key responsibility in guiding new medical students from Cameroon. The lobby group will also need to explain what our Cameroonian education system is all about to the Germany medical admission board. This will include inter alia the value of the Cameroon GCE Advance level vis-a-vis other African countries. Mindful of available statics in 2010, it will interest you to know that out of the 750 African medical students in Germany, 250 are from Cameroon and 140 from Nigeria. It’s like 1 in every 3 African medical student in Germany is a Cameroonian. This tells you that Cameroon is doing well in academic terms. Certainly, these numbers have been growing, and we need to build up and promote these figures which in turn will add up to the number of medical professionals.

Cameroon Concord News: We heard recently that Camfomedicas wants to get to the needy, in view of the socio-political situation in Cameroon. How do you intend to go about that?

Dr. Fonyuy Nyuyki: We have actually been doing something.  War is not a good thing and its devastating effects in the societies are immense. Camfomedics is impartial, apolitical and we will help the victims irrespective of their background or political divide. We launched a fund to this effect and we are appealing to all races in planet earth to support this fund, so that we can together help the suffering people. We are collaborating with local organization to make sure that the aid gets to the affected population.

Cameroon Concord News:  How is the relation between Camfomedics and your colleagues of the other medical associations in Germany, for example the German medical organization?

Dr. Fonyuy Nyuyki: The bill of health is positive. We have a good partnership, with the Deutsch Ärtzkammer – their boss was with us in Hamburg last year. Both at national and at regional level, we are pulling on well and we hope to keep this reputational relationship in a better and productive way.

Cameroon Concord News: Thank you very much for your time!It was nice talking to you Dr. Fonyuy Nyuyki.

Dr. Fonyuy Nyuyki: Thanks for having me.

Reported by Tambe Ndip Arrah

As the Kremlin seeks to boost ties with Africa, a Moscow university that was a training ground for the continent’s elite during the Cold War is once again working to bolster Russia’s soft power.

The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, created in 1960 to improve Soviet ties with developing nations, counts among its alumni top politicians in Rwanda, Uganda, Mali, Chad, Angola, Botswana and other African countries.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s interest in Africa declined and the institution briefly became better known for skinhead attacks on its students than for building bridges with the continent.

Now, as Moscow prepares for the first Russia-Africa summit on October 23-24, rector Vladimir Filippov says the university is reviving its status as a top destination for young Africans.

“Our task — and the task of Russia as a whole — is to revive the system that we once had during the Soviet Union” for the advanced training of Russian and foreign students, he said.

Filippov, a former education minister, told AFP he welcomes two African university delegations a month, on average, seeking to develop ties with the institution.

Around 1,200 African students are enrolled in the university, which is spread across several campuses in a southern district of Moscow.

During the Soviet period it was known as Patrice Lumumba University after the Congolese independence leader. Today it goes by the Russian acronym RUDN.

In a hall of the grey, Soviet modernist main building, Russian and foreign students mingle as members of the Guinean society dance to traditional music.

– Exporting Russian expertise –

Filippov says the university’s aim is not simply to attract African students to Russia, but also to export Russian expertise to the continent and vice versa.

Of RUDN’s cooperation agreements with 49 African universities, more than 20 were inked in the last two years.

In addition, RUDN has established Russian language centres in Namibia and Zambia.

The rector acknowledged that this increased activity was tied up with Moscow’s aim to develop its presence in some African nations.

“Of course it’s always a question of geopolitical interests and economics,” Filippov said.

The university is meanwhile hoping that some of its Russian students will spend time in Africa after they graduate. At the end of this month, RUDN will host its first “I Want to Work in Africa” careers fair.

The Soviet Union maintained a strong presence in Africa as part of its ideological war with the West, backing liberation movements and sending tens of thousands of advisors to former colonies that had gained independence.

Touting military cooperation, arms deals and investment, Russia is making a comeback on the continent and seeks to rival European countries and even China, analysts say.

Chimuka Singuwa, a 23-year-old Zambian who is working towards a master’s degree in international relations and diplomacy at RUDN, said he had the opportunity to study in Russia or China.

– Russia or China? –

He chose Moscow on the advice of his grandfather, who was a student at RUDN in the 1970s.

Singuwa said he had no regrets about passing up on a Chinese education.

“I’m kind of against the ‘takeover’ of Africa by the Chinese,” he said, pointing to the debt Zambia has accumulated with China, its main investor.

Singuwa will travel to the Russian resort town of Sochi to work as a volunteer at the Africa summit, which he described as a “great opportunity” for the regions to develop their relations.

RUDN hit international headlines in 2003 with a dormitory fire that killed 43 foreign students. Arson was never ruled out, and witnesses and rights groups criticised what they said was a slow response to the blaze.

At the time, foreign students also told media of racially motivated attacks.

But Singuwa said he had encountered little racism in Moscow.

“In some remote areas in Russia, where there’s one foreigner, that’s kind of difficult,” he said.

Ousmane Setibaye Sou, a 25-year-old undergraduate from Chad, told AFP he had come to Moscow expecting racism but had not experienced any.

He said he would like to help develop cultural relations between Russia and his home country.

“There are many people there who speak Russian,” he said, adding that dozens of Chadians had been coming to Russia to study every year since the 1970s.

“Even our former prime minister (Yusuf Saleh Abbas) was a student” at RUDN, he said.

Culled from AFP