Francophone teachers barred from Anglophone schools

This comes as a result of pressure brought to bear on the authorities of the University of Bamenda (UBa) hosting the Higher Technical Teachers’ Training College (HTTTC), Higher Teachers Training College (HTTC) by the Cameroon Teachers’ Trade Union (CATTU) and the Teachers’ Association of Cameroon (TAC).

The decision to bar Francophone student teachers from practising in Anglophone schools was taken at one of the crisis meetings of last December 31 and January 2, 2016, convened by Northwest Governor, Adolphe Lele L’Afrique.

The meeting was attended by the leaders of TAC, CATTU, political opinion leaders in the Northwest, members of Union of Parent-Teachers’ Association, UPTA, Civil Society Organisations and some Anglophone lawyers.

The Governor had wanted to convince the trade union leaders to call off a strike action that was planned to paralyse the beginning of the second term in the Northwest and Southwest Regions.

According to CATTU National Executive Secretary, Wilfred Tassang, in the face of calls on parents with children in secondary schools where “ENS and ENSET” Bambili train their student teachers to keep their children at home from the beginning of the second term, the Governor had to cave in.

Tassang said among several demands tabled by the teachers’ trade unions, the most urgent was the immediate stopping of Francophone student teachers in HTTTC and HTTC Bambili from practising on Anglophone children.

Other demands included the withdrawal and redeployment of Francophone teachers posted to teach Anglophone subjects other than the French language and Anglophone teachers posted to teach Francophone subjects other than Anglais.

He said after failing to get them change their minds in the meeting of December 31, the Governor convened another meeting on January 2, 2016, where the Vice Chancellor of UBa, Prof. Theresa Nkuo Akenji, and the Directors of HTTTC and the HTTC were brought in.

“After about eight hours of wrangling, it was resolved that HTTTC and HTTC Bambili would put a pause on the teaching practice, withdraw the teachers already posted to some schools, sort out the Francophones and cause them to practise on Francophone children in and out of the Northwest Region.

In the Northwest, we don’t have bilingual technical colleges and so all the Francophone student teachers of that college have to be deployed to other Regions to do their teaching practice effectively,” Tassang said.

He said in another meeting that held in Yaounde on January 4, at the behest of the Minister of Higher Education, Prof. Jacques Fame Ndongo, the decision stopping Francophone student teachers from practising in Anglophone schools was maintained.

Tassang said even though they spent a lot of time debating what the Constitution says and what it did not say on the education of Cameroonian children, they succeeded in sorting out the problems besetting the Anglophone subsystem of education.

“But what is pending is whether I can go to Sangmelima, Bengbis, Nguelemendouga, etc, and teach Francophone children chemistry in English language. If it is about passing on knowledge, that wouldn’t succeed. And that should be the Minister’s understanding of Cameroon’s bilingualism to which we are saying no. That is not what the 1998 law on the orientation of national education says. It says there are two sub-systems – the English and the French. And the first differentiation in the two sub-systems is the language of instruction.”

Tassang said they agreed with the Minister of Secondary Education that the deployment of teachers be re-examined to ensure that Francophones and Anglophones are comfortable wherever they are working. He also mentioned a special request for the withdrawal and re-orientation of all Francophones reading English Modern Letters in the HTTC Bambili and other schools of education in Cameroon to departments where they have academic competence.

He said they disagreed with the Minister on the fact that certificates awarded to Francophones from HTTC Bambili in the teaching of English language be withdrawn.

“There was also a special appeal we tabled that Anglophone Cameroonians of Northwest and Southwest extraction be given an opportunity, in a special recruitment exercise, to enter the HTTC Bambili and HTTTC of Bambili and Kumba, in large numbers to make up for what we call 50 years of neglect of training of Anglophone teachers.

Here, we are talking about Regional balance and about opportunities to be given to Anglophone Cameroonians in these two Regions to contribute their quota in nation building,” Tassang said.

Disclosing that the Ministry of Higher Education seemingly doesn’t have detailed statistics on intake into the HTTC and HTTTC Bambili, as they requested the trade unions to furnish them with such information, Tassang said irrespective of that, it requires the political will of the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic for such a special recruitment exercise to be organised.

“Government is known to have taken such remedial action in the past, like for Cameroonians of some Regions during ENAM recruitments in the sixties and seventies and for the recruitment of students into ENS Maroua at its inception,” he asserted.