Education

21, January 2017

Southern Cameroons Problem: Anglophone University Lecturers are for the deprived and marginalized ¹

THE POSITION OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF TEACHERS OF HIGHER EDUCATION (SYNES) UNIVERSITY OF BUEA

Dear Anglophone University Teachers,

It is typically Anglophone for intellectuals to stand up or speak for the deprived or marginalized. Their role as torch bearer is even more urgent when we witness the scale of injustice that has pervaded our society and pushed Anglophones to the fringes of our society. How can we sit quiet when the students who go through our educational system have no place in a country they rightly think is theirs too. They are not fit to enter even the professional schools they think were created to serve their interest because everything requires that they know someone or have money. The fact that students who go through our system with 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 or even 25 points in the GCE A/L cannot enter Medical School in UB or UBa is inexcusable. This, and a long list of other grievances pushed ALL Anglophone teachers to go on strike after they had been ignored for 10 months.

I will like to thank ALL Anglophone teachers and parents for saying “ENOUGH” to a system which insults us and our children and makes us to feel like strangers in our own home. We would also like to thank our Francophone counterparts who have stood by us and believed in the need for justice for children who go through our system of education. May I also thank our students for understanding that our goal is no less than to give them equal chances in a bi-cultural, bilingual and bi-jural Cameroon. They have well behaved so far; they stayed at home and have not yielded to any provocation.

It is, however, shameful that some intellectuals, at this critical moment in history, some of them retired professors, can still afford the shameful option of thinking that they can continue to protect their “garri” at the expense of the people’s aspirations. The press is not surprising, but it is a needless distraction and shameless expression of their appetite for impunity.

May I reiterate that the strike continues until we are given a definite solution to this beggarly life that has been imposed on us and our children. We are working in synergy with other Anglophone teacher unions and will stop at nothing to obtain fair treatment for Anglophones in Cameroon. The teachers are still on strike and we will inform students when the issues have been resolved satisfactorily.

Once again, we salute your massive support and determination to make a date with history.

PROF. JAMES ARREY ABANGMA

PRESIDENT, SYNES-UB

19, January 2017

Anglophone Problem: Government backtracking on Ad Hoc Committee decision ⁰

The Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo government is backtracking on its decision that dissolved the Ad Hoc Committee and eventually led to the arrest of the leaders of the Consortium. It is now even hard to say who is really in charge in Cameroon. The Minister of Higher Education, Jacques Fame Ndongo made public a press release stating that the government will resume dialogue with the teachers on the 31st of January 2017.

The Fame Ndongo communiqué also stated that the fourth round of talks shall be held at the conference hall of his department. A lot of tongues have been waging ever since the Biya acolyte published the press release yesterday January the 18^th 2017. We understand the Director of Cabinet at the Prime Minister’s Office; one Mr Ghogumu Paul Mingo had announced that discussion with the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium was over.

Ghogumu Paul Mingo’s pronouncement prompted the banning of the Consortium by another inexperienced Francophone Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, Rene Emmanuel Sadi. The MINAT order led to the arrest of the leaders of the Consortium. Cameroon Concord News sources say Wilfred Tassang is currently at the US embassy in Yaounde.

One of the interesting features of the Minister Fama Ndongo press release is that the CPDM operates many governing councils within the crime syndicate. At present, we do not know if Minister Fame Ndongo intends to appoint teachers representatives who will brave the bad roads and come to Yaoundé to dialogue with him. “This is highly unsatisfactory from a government that has many cabinet ministers with PhDs attached to their names” noted a retired Anglophone Head Master contacted by CAMCORDNEWS.

But something very unusual has just happened. The Minister of Higher Education observed in his press release that he was by his action informing “national and international public opinion” of the 31^st of January meeting. The inclusion of international public opinion not by the government spokesman is a major backdown.

Nigeria has had numerous armed struggles: Boko Haram, Niger Delta Avengers and Biafra. It has never disconnected internet services in any of its region. The decision to cutoff internet and telephone services in British Southern Cameroons tells us how they (Francophones) see us and tells us that we are not part of them. It is sad to see the powerful Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime backtracking on this.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

10, January 2017

Southern Cameroons Civil Disobedience: THIS IS WHAT OUR CHILDREN SHOULD LEARN ⁰

Let’s teach the children that today’s act of civil disobedience is the ultimate expression of their power over the dictator Biya and his coterie of corrupt ministers.

Let’s tell our children, that this act of civic education- of boycotting school, to demand accountability from an insensitive government is what developed countries have done to become developed.

Let’s teach our children that true education is an outgrowth of the needs of society, and that even the best education in a society where one is treated as a second-class citizen only diminishes one’s self-esteem.

Let’s teach our children that the ultimate purpose of education is to mould a free individual, who can think critically, and that having the best education and remaining under bondage is a negation of that education.

Let’s teach our children that the best education is the attainment of self-government where we can decide how far we want to go, and not forced to live in a system where we can only aspire to play second fiddle.

Let’s give our children historical examples where students stayed away from school for a year, and gained the right to earn a substantively richer education, through the use of cutting edge technology that is available in more open societies.

Let’s take advantage of this teachable moment empower our children to aspire to a genuine education that no despotism can enslave.

By Larry Eyong

9, January 2017

Francophone Minister of Secondary Education jeered and booed at Ndop ²

The people of Ndop in Ngoketunjia Division, North West region have reportedly jeered at the Minister of Secondary Education, Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe yesterday Sunday January 8, 2017 during a working visit to the region as part of measures to lure teachers, students and pupils get back to school this Monday.

In a crisis meeting held in Ndop, the people threatened to walk out of the gathering as soon as the minister started delivering his speech in French. The Secondary education boss was compelled to speak in English for close to thirty minutes after the people pressed on him to do so. After addressing the people in English Jean Ernest Bibehe begged for permission and read his speech in French which was interpreted in English by the Regional Delegate for secondary Education Mombakuet Victor.

The minister who has a one week mission to the North West region has been moving from one town to the other trying to lure stakeholders to give go ahead with school resumption activities today Monday. The minister met with leaders of trade unions in Bamenda in which he is said to have been on bended knees for them to call off the strike action. The Bamenda meeting did not yield fruits.

Cameroun Info Net

8, January 2017

Open letter to H.E. Okala Bilaï, colonial governor of the South West region ³

Your Excellency, it is with regrets that I write to your office at this crucial moment of your colonial occupational rule. Sir, after listening to you this evening (Friday 6th January 2017) over CRTV, I heard you saying “Teachers who will not return to school will have their salaries suspended.” Most of these teachers you are talking about don’t even have a service number yet. And those who got the service number are not different from the thousands of job seekers parading our streets on a daily basis.

These teachers work for close to four years or more before the said salary is made available. moreover, the machinery put in place by your hierarchy in “La République” has made it difficult for teachers to earn what you call salary. How on earth do you create a system that warrants a teacher to give away 20% or more of his or her pay package to an agent before he or she can seemingly boast of having his or her name on the list of those programmed to collect their salaries? Should you take it back, it makes no difference. I wonder whether that salary is the raison d’être of your behavior towards us.

If you are paying us so as to deal with us the way you have been doing in the past and even up-to-date, then you had better done what you have promised. By the way, which salary are you talking about? Is it commensurate to the job teachers do every day? How much is the salary and what is the work load of the teachers you are threatening? Our Fons and Chiefs rejected 50 million from your hierarchy. Our university students waved at the meager 50 thousand francs you people wanted to buy their consciences with. Gone are those days! Money is not our interest! FEDERALISM OR INDEPENDENCE is what we stand for. No amount of money can purchase our freedom!

We have suffered a lot under your colonial administration. No degree of threats can repel us from our target. It is time we stand for what we believe in and hope for. “He who refuses to fight today, will live to fight for ever.” ALUTA CONTINUA.

28, November 2016

Academic activities paralyzed as Buea University students begin strike ⁰

Buea University students have started a massive strike action today morning within the campus of the university. The students inter alia have demanded that all French-speaking lecturers who teach only in French be told to leave the university. To contain the peaceful demonstration, police forces have been deployed on campus and shots were reportedly fired to disperse the crowd. The police have also strengthened their anti-riot system around the student residential area in Molyko.

The Francophone governor of the South West region, Okalia Bilai said in a press release that an unidentified group was behind the strike to intimidate parents and students from going about their normal educational activity.

Some SDF parliamentarians decided to march peacefully in Buea to show their solidarity with the Anglophone community in Cameroon. Lawyers and teachers had staged similar demos which were repressed by the police and resulted in the demand for federalism. Biya dispatched his Prime Minister to negotiate a peaceful settlement. But the Yang Philemon mission ended in fiasco. The lawyers and teachers have extended their unlimited strike action.

By Rita Akana

14, November 2016

Cameroon army reopens schools in the Far North, soldiers serving as teachers ¹

The weakening of the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram by the Cameroonian military made it possible to reopen some of the schools in the Far North Region for the 2016/2017 academic year. A sister publication, Cameroun-info.net has reported that many teachers who fled the war zone have refused to return.

In order to ensure the education of the abandoned pupils, some soldiers have decided to take the chalk. The army recently reopened the Madina Public School (10 km from Fotokol) which currently has 150 pupils and Cameroonian men and women in uniform are now serving as teachers.

It is good news in the avalanche of sadness that for three years has rocked the Far North Region. Last year, the departments in charge of national, primary and secondary education reported that more than five hundred teachers had dropped out of classrooms to escape the war.

By Sama Ernest

19, October 2016

German language regional pedagogic inspectors meeting in Yaounde ⁰

Regional Pedagogic Inspectors for the German Language in Cameroon are meeting to learn improved methods of teaching the language in Secondary Schools. The three-day seminar opened at the Goethe Institute of Learning in Yaounde on the 18th of October 2016 prompted by poor teachings as revealed by the writings on the photo attached to this report by state-owned radio and television, CRTV.

The forum is holding under the theme, “the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of German Learners using Competent-based Approaches.” Organised by the Ministry of Secondary Education and the Goethe Institute, the seminar aims at providing teachers with new and better teaching techniques.

While chairing the opening ceremony, the Inspector Coordinator General in charge of Letters, Arts and Languages at the Ministry of Secondary Education, Charles Etoundi expressed the Ministry’s commitment to improve on the capacity of its teachers in order that goodbye will not be translated as goodbye in German but Auf Wiedersehen.

The Pedagogic Inspectors will also be introduced to a new international school exchange programme for teachers involved in the teaching of the German language. The programme is intended to create learning partnerships in a bid to improve pedagogic skills and create better working conditions for teachers. The session ends on 20th October 2016.

CRTV

17, October 2016

Yaounde hosting forum on learning and teaching of Mathematics ⁰

Pedagogic Inspectors of Mathematics in the Ministry of Secondary Education have begun a training programme in Yaounde to develop strategies towards inculcating the love for Mathematics in students. Placed under the theme, “Learning and Teaching Mathematics Differently”, the programme to run till 28th October 2016 is aimed at strengthening the content and delivery of Mathematics in secondary schools in the country.

The Secretary of State at the Ministry of Secondary Education in charge of Teachers’ Training, Boniface Bayaola chaired the ceremony to open the session which is being organised with assistance from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. The representatives of the Institute indicate the need to change the style of teaching Mathematics and encourage the use of technology for example, the recording of lessons.

Over the years, pedagogic officials proposed the use of cartoons and other images to incite the desire and love for maths especially in little children. This has yielded some positive results. However, much is still desired since students still complain of the long, complicated mathematics problems and the many formulae. The training programme which shall spread over a period of five years is expected to incite the love for Mathematics in about 1.700.000 Cameroonian students.

CRTV

12, October 2016

New dress code for Yaounde University II students ⁰

The Rector of the University of Yaounde II, Soa, Ibrahima Adamou has prescribed a new dress code for students in the university. The prescription is contained in a communiqué signed in September 2016.

Accordingly, the Rector prohibits indecent dressing, unnecessary piercings, excessive adorning with jewellery and extravagant hairdos. Both boys and girls on campus are exhorted to abide by these prescriptions which require that student tone down their general external looks.

In this light, short dresses above knee level, tight-fitting clothes, sleeveless tops, irregular hair colours and styles, extra-high shoes, slippers, earrings (for boys), caps and anklets, amongst others are prohibited on campus. The Rector of the University argues that the decision is intended uphold decency, virtuous behaviour and the respect of ethics in the University.

If the Rector’s instructions are heeded to, the University of Yaounde II, Soa will measure up with most professional schools where the administration has succeeded in keeping a keen eye on decency.