Teachers' Unions decry inaccuracies in police entrance exams

The Presbyterian Education Authority Teacher Trade Union, PEATU, the Catholic Education Workers Trade Union, CEWOTU, and the Teachers Association of Cameroon, TAC, on April 6, issued a joint communiqué appealing to the Head of State, President Paul Biya to as a matter of urgency, cancel the “substandard and arbitrary nature of the translated version of the competitive entrance examination for Anglophones in the recent recruitment of police officers.”

The memo signed by PEATU President - Stephen AfuKwah, CEWOTU President - Michael Kimfon, and TAC President, Valentine NfonTameh, pointed out that the “shortcomings” and “aberrations” noticed in the student inspectors’ examination questions was poorly translated and the same ailment could be suffered by candidates of other police entrance examinations".

“Your Excellency, permit us to point out the following to you; that the examination lacked instructions that usually guide candidates to answer examination questions with accuracy and other inconsistencies that degrade this endeavour".

Secondly, the title “Sujet en Fran?ais”, which hardly conveyed any meaning in French was shoddily translated into English, making the information inaccurate and in some cases, meaningless in “English Language”.

The executive bureaus of these trade unions are angry that the “Questions were poorly translated into English and this was compounded by generally incomprehensible phrases”.

At the level of student-inspectors, the trade union leaders are convinced that the examination was sub-standard. The reproducibility of this means that if candidates were subjected to the same examination over and over, the results would not be reliable especially as the questions are inconsistent to a larger extent.

“Your Excellency, such shortcomings and aberration in public examinations give the impression to the world that Cameroonians in positions of authority do not bother to respect issues of national identity.

There is every indication that those who set these public examinations, always perhaps deliberately choose to flout our official policy of bilingualism, deliberately mocking our country’s cherished Constitution and thus are enemies of the nation.

It cannot be gainsaid that these poor translations means that Anglophone candidates who go in for these examinations would fail,” reads the memo.

The teachers’ leaders say their frustration is exacerbated by the silence of the highest authorities of the land in the wake of repeated cries over the issue of shoddy translations for examination at Polytechnic Yaounde, HTTTC and HTTC Bambili, ENSET Douala as well as the Probatoire, CAP and Baccalaureate examination for Anglophones, among an endless list.

While appealing to Biya to set up a team to probe the issues presented to him, the teachers believe that Cameroonians in top positions are not patriotic enough.

For that reason, “We call for a total cancellation of the said examination. That is the only thing that will soothe our decent nationalistic sensibilities. We, Anglophones, are tired of being taken for granted and treated unjustly and in bad faith in our fatherland,” the memo concluded.