Education

22, February 2019

Yaounde: Minister Nalova says teaching in secondary schools to go digital ⁰

Cameroon’s Minister of Secondary Education Nalova Lyonga said Wednesday that the country will begin teaching students in secondary school online to “gain time and facilitate the learning process.”

“We have a lot of schools that are not built with the right material and methodology. We are looking into the teaching methodology. We want to go digital,” Lyonga said during mid-term evaluation meeting of the 2018-2019 school year held in the capital, Yaounde.

“The more subjects we have online the better, and this is a methodology that shows us how we can actually transform a 45 minutes lesson into 10 minutes by highlighting those very important elements of the lesson,” She added.

Cameroon already has a sample of the online teaching platform and teachers are being trained on its usage, she said, adding that the programme will cover about 2,000 secondary schools in the country.

Xinhua

18, February 2019

Southern Cameroons: Kidnapping at Catholic school in Kumbo ⁰

There is more bad news from Cameroon and again from the town of Kumbo where Independent Catholic News reported deaths through violent action by security forces.

A kidnapping occurred at 5am local time on Saturday 16 February at St Augustine’s Secondary College, a Catholic school. Secessionist rebels supporting setting up a new state ‘Ambazonia’ entered the school and kidnapped at least 145 pupils, the majority girls, who were subsequently released.

Early reports suggested a figure nearer 200 including members of staff but this has not been corroborated. The number is lower than it would have been in the daytime during the working week.

Kumbo is the second largest centre in the North West Region, having its own bishop. It is 110 km from Bamenda where a Presbyterian school suffered a kidnapping and whose auxiliary bishop Michael Bibi was twice kidnapped while travelling on church business.

This is in the context of legitimate grievances by English speakers against the government led by French speakers seeking to impose their language on the educational and legal systems.

Cameroon’s 86 year-old President Paul Biya, in power for 36 years, was declared re-elected recently. His main opponent Maurice Kamto has been arrested and charged with rebellion.

Philip Egan, bishop of Bamenda’s twinned diocese Portsmouth, has urged his flock to write to the Minister for Africa Harriett Baldwin urging the British government to bring pressure on Cameroon to reduce local tensions.

Source: Independent Catholic News

19, January 2019

Warwick Law School speaks of Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute ⁰

Warwick Law School postgraduate alumnus Joseph Dion Ngute has been appointed as the new Prime Minister of Cameroon. Dion Ngute took office on 5 January 2019, replacing Philemon Yang, the country’s longest-serving Prime Minister.

Dion Ngute has served in the Cameroonian government since 1997, including positions at the Ministry of External Relations and at the Presidency of the Republic, and he has represented Cameroon on both the UN Human Rights Council and the African Commission for Human and People’s Rights.

Dion Ngute came to Warwick in 1978 to research a PhD on comparative contract law under Jill Cottrell, which was awarded in 1982. His thesis, entitled “Standardized Contracts in a Bi-jural State: the United Republic of Cameroon”, is available to read online at the Warwick Research Archive Portal

12, January 2019

New Africa programme to focus on youth and its engagement with heritage ⁰

Connect and inspire African youth with the possibilities of their rich heritage. Use digital technologies, including social media, to promote heritage awareness and support creative industries. Engage heritage as an economic asset, to address poverty and unemployment among young people. These are just some of the potential directions discussed during ICCROM’s Africa Expert Meeting for Cultural Heritage Conservation, held at the Egyptian Academy in Rome from 9 – 11 January 2019.

Fifteen professionals from 15 institutions met to discuss how best to design an impactful programme to support youth and its engagement in heritage in the African region. The Africa Expert Meeting took inspiration from the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and particularly from the development goals for sustainable cities and communities, gender equality, decent work and economic growth. Also invoked was the Africa Union’s Agenda 2063 “The Africa We Want,” which is committed to realizing Africa’s full potential in development, culture and peace.

The event was launched on Wednesday 9 January in the presence of HE Mr Hisham Badr, Egyptian Ambassador to Italy, HE Mr Hassan Abouyoub, Moroccan Ambassador to Italy, Mr Giovanni Panebianco, Secretary-General of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MIBAC), and Dr Gihane Zaki, Director of the Egyptian Academy in Rome, together with Dr Webber Ndoro, Director-General of ICCROM.

“Africa has the youngest population of any continent,” said Dr Ndoro, ICCROM’s Director-General. “Heritage can be for youth a source of livelihood, identity, and a stimulus for development. The input of youth needs to be clear for what our heritage is and how to take it forward.”

Noting Egypt’s upcoming presidency of the African Union in 2019, Egyptian Ambassador Hisham Badr commented: “This meeting focuses on two important elements: culture – with all its meanings, values, messages – and youth.” He added, “Culture is a mainstay. Egypt is a nation that’s proud of its culture. In all its international relationships, in its sustainability initiatives, culture is the key.”

“We must consider the needs and special skills of youth,” underlined Giovanni Panebianco, Secretary-General of the Italian Cultural Heritage Ministry MIBAC. “Heritage conservation offers real opportunities to build a better future for Africa. Italy is aware of its role with respect to Africa, and is actively pursuing scientific and cultural cooperation in the aim of overall sustainable development on the continent.”

“It’s time to invest in young Africans,” said Dr Gihane Zaki, Director of the Egyptian Academy in Rome. “How can we put young people forward, help them take responsibility for their heritage, with enthusiasm, energy, generosity and passion?” Dr Zaki stressed Egypt’s keenness to support young people in the African continent. “I am confident that ICCROM will play a strategic role in implementing new, fresh and innovative ideas to engage young people. It’s important also to remember and appreciate women’s pivotal role in African societies.”

The three-day discussions led to definition of broad directions for a future Africa programme that aims to make African heritage attractive to young people on the continent, improving their involvement in the stewardship of heritage to ensure inclusive economic and social benefits to all generations. The proposed Africa programme includes the following objectives:

1) Sustain economic and social development through innovation and engagement with stakeholders for youth and women in heritage.

2) Increase engagement and interest of youth and women in heritage through the adoption of a people-centred approach in conservation.

3) Strengthen institutions as dynamic, innovative, reliable and attractive resources for communities, government and the private sector.

These objectives were presented at the event’s closing ceremony on Friday 11 January, attended Mr Giorgio Marrapodi, Director-General of Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), and Mr Cléophas Adrien Dioma, Director and co-founder of the Ottobre Africano festival and representative of the African Diaspora in Rome.

“This programme is about making heritage cool through innovative ways, and making African heritage accessible to African youth and women,” said Benis Nchang of Better Life Initiative, Cameroon and Alyssa K Barry of Senegal, youth representatives to the meeting. “It’s about making youth proud of our African cultural heritage, and encouraging them to contribute to its conservation.”

For his part, Dr Ndoro thanked all the meeting participants for their contributions to the discussion, as well as the ambassadors and institutional representatives present. He extended particular thanks to the Egyptian Academy in Rome for hosting the event, and called on all ICCROM’s partner institutions and Member States, both in Africa and worldwide, to support this new initiative.

“It’s time to unlock the potential of heritage to provide a better life and livelihood to communities in Africa,” said Dr Ndoro. “Heritage is about now, about what is happening today. Youth must see the opportunities in heritage.”

Member States represented: Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

The Africa Expert Meeting was held at the Egyptian Academy in Rome, by gracious invitation of its Director, Dr Gihane Zaki, also an ICCROM Council Member. The Egyptian Academy is the only fine arts academy in Rome that represents both Africa and the Arab States, and thus is a committed stakeholder in a successful Africa strategy at ICCROM.

About ICCROM
ICCROM is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage worldwide. It works with 136 Member States to ensure the best tools, knowledge, skills and enabling environment to preserve cultural heritage in all its forms, for the benefit of all people. www.iccrom.org

8, January 2019

Zimbabwe teachers to strike over pay as currency crisis deepens ⁰

Zimbabwean teachers will strike from Tuesday to press for US dollar salaries as talks with the government failed to bring a breakthrough, a union says, adding pressure on President Emmerson Mnangagwa to contain a runaway currency crisis.

Cash shortages have plunged Zimbabwe’s financial system into disarray, threatening social unrest and undermining Mnangagwa’s efforts to win back foreign investors sidelined under his predecessor Robert Mugabe.

With not enough hard currency to back up funds showing in bank accounts, the value of electronic money has plummeted, prompting businesses and civil servants to demand payment in US dollars they can withdraw.

Just over four months into Mnangagwa’s contested presidency, the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Union (ZIMTA) said its members would strike as spiraling inflation has left them unable to buy basic goods and fuel that are in short supply. Government doctors have been on strike for more than a month over the same issue.

ZIMTA president Richard Gundani told Reuters a meeting between public sector unions and acting Labor Minister July Moyo only resolved to re-start talks, but teachers would not report for duty from Tuesday.

“We were very frank to each other and all the unions agreed that workers are incapacitated and we provided sufficient justification that they are unable to work,” Gundani said.

“ZIMTA’s declaration of incapacitation stands and teachers will not go to work.”

Moyo did not immediately answer calls to his mobile phone.

The government employs more than 100,000 teachers and ZIMTA has 44,000 members.

On Monday, police arrested and later released 9 members of the smaller Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe who were picketing at a park in central Harare, their lawyer said.

There was a heavy presence of police with water cannon elsewhere in the capital.

As doctors continue their strike, Zimbabwe’s public hospitals have been left short of drugs and reliant on patients to buy them. Pharmacies have stopped accepting insurance policies for purchases and demand payment in dollars.

Zimbabwe is also struggling with acute shortages of fuel, forcing motorists to queue for hours.

Civil servant salaries accounted for 90 percent of the budget last year but Mnangagwa’s government has made an ambitious pledge to cut this to 70 percent in 2019 as part of reforms aimed at boosting growth and investment.

Mnangagwa came to power in November 2017 after Mugabe was forced to resign following an army coup. He was declared president in August 2018 after a presidential vote that his main opponent says he won fraudulently.

(Source: Reuters)

31, December 2018

SOBA UK Appoints Danbro as its Accountants and deploys an innovative Cloud-based Accounting System ⁰

Fellow Sobans,

On 22nd September 2018, the General Assembly of SOBA UK met at St George’s Park, Burton Upon Trent under the theme “Together we Succeed” and committed to modernising its financial systems. SOBA UK is pleased to announce the successful appointment of the UK Accounting firm Danbro as SOBA UK’s Accountants.

Danbro Accounting will provide accounting services, supply and manage a cloud-based accounting system for SOBA UK. The financial data migration phase to the new cloud-based accounting system was recently completed. The Executive Treasurer and Financial Secretaries have been getting to grips with this fantastic new proprietary tool and are excited about the prospects of providing robust financial reporting to our members.

Why is this important to SOBA UK?

Members commitment – Members voted to modernise our financial systems and reporting.
Automatic reporting – Automatic reports (P&L, Balance sheet, Transactions by Categories etc) can be produced directly from the cloud-based system.
Increased activity – SOBA UK’s financial activities have increased greatly over recent years and there is a need for a proprietary solution for easy and instant reporting.
Securing data – SOBA UK’s financial data and analyses will be held securely on the system for future members. There is no more use of Excel Workbooks located on private computers.
Improved productivity – This will free up time for the executive team to spend on core association activities and engaging with members.
Greater accountability – There will be more accountability through independent reviews of SOBA UK accounts by Danbro.

What will the UK accounting firm Danbro do for SOBA UK?

Supply and manage the cloud-based system.
Provide annual accounts for our members.
Deal with correspondence from HMRC and other agencies.
Act as the corporate secretary for SOBA UK as would be required.

SOBA UK is excited about this great new development in the association, with the management team looking forward to working with Danbro to provide greater financial insights to both members and other agencies.

Best wishes for 2019.

Kind regards,

Mr John Bawak General Secretary, SOBA UK On behalf of SOBA UK Members

Counter Signed by Mr Ayuk Akoh-Arrey, FIA President, SOBA UK

Counter Signed by Mr Bime Lafon Vice President, SOBA UK

15, December 2018

Ambazonia: 17 kidnapped university students freed in Bamenda ⁰

Seventeen students of the University of Bamenda in Cameroon, who were abducted from Dec. 5 to 10, have been released, according to an official statement released late Wednesday.

“Following coordinated operations organised by the administrative authorities, forces of law and order, the parents of the kidnapped students and some patriotic citizens living in the neighborhood, the release of all the students has been secured as of date,” said Lele Lafrique, governor of Northwest, one of the war-torn English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

He said the students were abducted by a “criminal gang” that is specialized in the kidnapping of students for ransom.

Students and university authorities need to step up vigilance and collaborate with government forces as a measure to stop the abductions, Lafrique said.

In early November, the government accused separatists of kidnapping 79 children of a private school in the Northwest. They were released a few days later. Separatists, however, insisted that most of the kidnappings were staged by the government to tarnish their image internationally.

Since November last year, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two regions to secede from the majority French-speaking nation and form a new country called “Ambazonia”.

Source:Xinhuanet

19, November 2018

University professor, employee kidnapped in S.Cameroons ⁰

A professor and staff member of the University of Buea in troubled western Cameroon have been kidnapped, a statement received by AFP on Sunday said.

Charles Doumta, on the Health Sciences faculty, and George Ongey, who works for the research and cooperation office, were seized on Friday and November 10, respectively, the statement said without elaborating.

“These acts are meant to intimidate, create fear and panic among staff and students and disrupt the smooth functioning of the academic year,” Vice Chancellor Ngomo Horace Manga was quoted as saying in the statement, issued on Saturday.

The 12 000-student university is a historic centre of English-based learning in Cameroon, whose minority anglophone population is concentrated in the two western regions of Northwest and Southwest.

A crisis erupted in 2016 over perceived discrimination at the hands of the francophone majority in areas such as education, the justice system and the economy of the West African country.

Last year it developed into an armed conflict, with radicals declaring an independent state, the Republic of Ambazonia, which is not recognised internationally.

They have attacked troops and police and torched other symbols of the central government in the former German colony, which was divided between Britain and France after World War I.

Almost daily clashes now occur between security forces and separatists, who have organised themselves into scattered groups in the region’s dense tropical forests.

Early this month, armed men believed to be separatists abducted 90 students in Northwest Region, later freeing them in circumstances that remain unclear.

Armed gangs are also operating in the troubled regions, taking advantage of the conflict to demand protection money from businesses and individuals.

More than 200 troops and more than 500 civilians have died in regional fighting, according to non-governmental organisations.

The conflict has also already displaced more than 437 000 people, UN data released in October showed.

Source: AFP

13, November 2018

Shedding light on African media management challenges ⁰

Media management which involves dealing with employee management, audiences, budgets, the political environment and ethics, poses many challenges to media managers across the world. These challenges range from interference to increasing competition. Media managers are required to navigate through these challenges if they have to stay in business. Regardless of their structures or controlling arrangement, media are businesses that require business acumen to be financially profitable enterprises and to serve as providers of public enlightenment.

This applies to media across the globe, including African media which are mirror images of systems in Western countries such as Britain and France that have once colonized the continent. African media management is therefore based on management principles that are common to other sectors of the continent’s economy and it is believed to be an importation of colonialists who introduced western-style education on the continent. Given these similarities, media managers on the continent are bound to deal with challenges that are similar to those managers in Western countries such as Britain face, though in certain circumstances, the extent and nature of the issues could vary.

Media experts have pointed out that the main management issues arise from recurring dilemmas that lie at the heart of media-making. These include the potential clash between profit, on the one hand, and social purpose, on the other, and the issue of reconciling creative and editorial freedom with the demands of routine and large scale production.

Major changes in the structure of media industries, especially the processes of globalization, ownership conglomeration and organizational fragmentation provide new theoretical challenges. New means of distribution such as cable, satellite and the Internet have also given rise to new kinds of challenges. Like Europe, Africa is increasingly democratizing albeit slowly, and as a result, African media are relatively free to operate within the limits of the law, but conflicts still occur in relation to government and powerful social institutions.

One key challenge facing media managers in many African countries is the issue of interference by political authorities, owners and advertisers in the decision-making process and autonomy over content. The central issue here is the extent to which media organizations can claim to exercise autonomy, first in relation to their owners, and, second, to other direct economic agencies in their various locations, especially those who provide operating funds such as investors, advertisers and sponsors. Most African media, like their counterparts in Europe, have become market-based over the last two decades; but news media content in Africa sometimes reflects the interest of those who finance the media.

In Cameroon, like in other African countries, running a media institution could be challenging. The high start-up cost is usually compounded by the scarcity of investment capital, high interest rates and the unfavorable lending conditions offered by international financial institutions. The poor financial base of the continent’s media has led to a cycle of sub-optimizations where low salaries attract poor quality managers who cannot guarantee quality and cannot turn good profits. While Western media have access to loans, enjoy huge advertising revenues and use license fees paid by those receiving the service – in the case of broadcasting – as another revenue stream, African media managers are still at grips with very tough financial times.

To overcome this challenge, many African media, including privately-owned media institutions, have continued to depend on government subsidies and sales which have been declining over the years due to a lack of a reading culture, the emergence of the Internet, Satellite TV and other hand-held devices which offer free news alternatives. This is compromising the independence of old media managers and owners over content. Some private media managers on the continent sometimes have to bend over backwards just to stay in business by submitting to editorial controls by media owners and, by so doing; make unpopular management or editorial decisions.

Though media managers in Africa may enjoy more administrative freedom in the running of their establishments, there are however cases of arbitrary interference by media owners in both the management of the organizations and the control of editorial operations. Independent media owners in Africa are not apolitical as they appear, and always have specific objectives that underpin their interest in the media business. When these objectives are not purely political, they have tended to be commercial, religious, egotistical or a strange combination of some or all of them as pointed out by popular African media experts like Okigbo and Nyamjoh.

For many decades, most public media across the continent have been established by the governments and these public media usually come under the direct control and supervision of the government. In many countries, the supervisory authority is the communication ministry like in Cameroon which provides long-term guidance and short-term directives on management issues.

The relationships between public media and governments are often not very clearly defined. The degree of control and supervision can therefore change from time to time, depending on key players in the media and the supervisory authority. Such influence usually results in the media’s loss of independence over content.

This situation has been made all the more challenging by the increasing competition and the mushrooming of media outfits on the continent, especially cross-national media such as satellite operations. For example, the development of the East African Community and increasing attention on regional integration among East African countries has energized intra-regional competition among most powerful media institutions in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. To cope with this situation, contemporary African media resort to uninspiring content relating to the proprietors, be they government ministers or private business people.

The advent of new media, otherwise known as ‘technologies of freedom’, such as cable TV, satellite TV, digital handheld books, electronic newspapers, among others, which use digital protocols like the Internet, has brought new challenges to media managers in Africa. Prior to the advent of Internet- and satellite-based mass communication, most communication was effected through traditional books, newspapers, films and television. With the advent of new and innovative technology in the later part of the twentieth century that makes it possible to deliver information in various formats and rapidly too, traditional media managers have to device new strategies to cope with the competition that transnational communication systems are posing.

Like their counterparts in the West, especially in North America, most African media managers depend on mass consumer advertising for their survival. Technological advances are encouraging greater diversity throughout the media and entry barriers are coming down in many sectors and not only has the number of broadcast channels across the globe multiplied rapidly since the early 1990s, the Internet’s recent growth has also introduced a diverse array of new players, making competition a lot keener.

Today, the continent’s media landscape has undergone dramatic changes and despite these significant changes, the influence of European colonialism is still obvious. Major communication languages are foreign to the continent. This is due to the people’s high regard for foreign languages which have high status conferral qualities, the paucity of local language training in universities and the slowness of African governments to adopt vernacular languages for instruction and official transactions.

The advent of cutting-edge media technologies in the mid-twentieth century has completely transformed media landscapes across the globe and most former colonies have adopted media models that differ from those of their former colonial masters. With the emergence of new communication media like the Internet and transnational broadcast media, and the private sector’s increasing economic importance, many countries have resorted to different models of relationships with the society. Like transnational broadcast media, the Internet, a global search engine, is bringing information to people in the comfort of their homes, making it impossible for governments to impose restrictions.

The Internet and other superhighway information mechanisms provide better alternative methods and opportunities to share information with selected audiences without sanctions from the general public or state controllers of mainstream media. This has been made all the more possible by a relaxation of media rules across the globe and the increasing awareness that information is critical to development. In many African countries today, there is a growing number of “Internet cafés” that are granting access to the world-wide web to many people, especially in cities where the infrastructure is available and reliable.

Today, both governments and individuals own TV and radio stations, as well as web sites in former colonies and this has given people in these regions new information sources. While it was true that media development in Africa was patterned on systems existing in colonizing countries, today, the reality is different with African countries developing new models that allow for greater private ownership and societal participation in media activities.

Though new media technologies are offering new opportunities for media managers on the continent to avoid the heavy hand of government censorship, they have also brought cut-throat competition and financial challenges to the continent’s media managers who must seek new and innovative ways to survive in the new global media environment. These technologies have also exposed media managers to the financial and political influence of advertisers and investors who, in many cases, are not apolitical. And this only makes the challenges faced by African media managers more sophisticated.

Joachim Arrey, Ph.D

Toronto, Canada

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons. The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers. However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization. It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

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The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

9, November 2018

PSS Nkwen Affair: Principal and one teacher still being held ⁰

Dozens of children kidnapped by armed men in Cameroon have been freed, a priest conducting the negotiations said Wednesday. Although all 79 children and a driver were released, a principal and one teacher were still being held. They were abducted on Monday in Bamenda, a commercial hub of Cameroon’s restive English-speaking region, according to military and government sources.

“Praise God 78 children and the driver have been released. The principal and one teacher are still with the kidnappers. Let us keep praying,” said Samuel Fonki, a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon. “They look tired and psychologically tortured.”

One other child had escaped earlier, he added. The students are between 11 and 17 years old. The priest did not say precisely when the children were freed, or whether any deal had been made with the kidnappers. He had earlier said another 11 children were kidnapped by the same armed group on Oct. 31, then released after the school paid a ransom of 2.5 million CFA francs ($4,400).

Image: A woman awaits for news of her child at a school where 79 children were kidnapped in Bamenda — A woman waits for news of her child at the school in Bamenda

Most people in Cameroon speak French. Fonki and the Cameroonian military have accused English-speaking separatists of carrying out the kidnappings, but a separatist spokesman denied involvement.

The secessionists have imposed curfews and closed schools as part of their protest against Biya’s French-speaking government and its perceived marginalization of the English-speaking minority.

Cameroon’s separatist movement turned violent in 2017 after a government crackdown on initially peaceful demonstrations by English-speakers. The linguistic divide is a legacy of a former German colony in central Africa that was divided between allies France and Britain at the end of World War One.

Source: Reuters