French-speaking Cameroonians must consider learning English

Reforms are a necessary factor and an element in advancement. Reforms should aim at making life easier and worth living. Unfortunately many French-speaking people in Cameroon see the English-speaking sector of Cameroon as a black spot. Cameroon started as a Federal state, the constitution had it that to change the Federal state, the minority state or English-speaking state must vote separately by more than 50 percent for the Federation to be abolished. This Federation was abolished when the vote did not take account of the English-speaking people.

Elections When I was doing the General Certificate of Education in 1964, we, students were taught and sent out as independent people to go and conduct elections. I remember I was sent to a small village near Mbengwi called Guneko. We had to do three things; Count the votes as they were and each of the contesting candidates went with his or her results which were the same and signed by the contesting parties.

Secondly, we sent the results and these were announced over the Radio network. This was so in all polling stations.

Lastly, there were people in a central place who gathered all the results, made the totals and announced the final results. The winners were known at the end of the counting. This is what obtains in democratic countries. Our reform should go back to these so that our children should grow up knowing that two is two and five is five. Results should NEVER be counted and announced later.

Recently, I understand that there is a reform to make children in special secondary schools to do some subjects in English and some in French. These are said to be for the exceptionally bright children. But my fear is that the children could come out neither knowing English nor French. English and French are going down the drain. We should limit the number of subjects and stress on the fact that those studying in English or French come out knowing either English or French well. I studied English and did only rudimentary French.

Before enrolling in the University of Yaounde, we studied French for three months; all our courses were in French but language was not a handicap. After the University of Yaounde, I studied in Paris for one academic year and wrote a final term paper of about 60 pages in the French language. In Yaounde we found that our French speaking colleagues did not know map work in Geography but they picked up very fast.

May I divert and say that the French speaking Cameroonians need more reform in their system than the English speaking. They do not do practicals in the necessary science subjects of Chemistry, Biology and Physics as is the system with English speakers.

I remember a French speaking parent once told us to agitate for them to have practicals in the necessary subjects. Please, AUTHORITIES, look at this Another important thing in the French system is examinations. I suggest strongly that the Ministry of Education appoints two or more French brought-up people who know a bit of English to follow up the Anglophone subsystem of exams, from the settings, writing and supervision of written examinations, the coding of scripts, marking and compilation of results. This should take them one year to have a fine idea of the way the examination is done. Please, this is important.

My second year of study since I had to become a major librarian in a Bilingual Cameroon was to do an important in-service training. I studied in Quebec City and Montreal. The French-speaking Canadians were eager to know English and their 1st degree was to be called “Bachelors in Arts”, Bachelor of Arts. It was NOT because the English speakers were a majority but because they admired their system.

In a University set up, people, “teachers” have to climb the academic ladder by writing articles. For the holder of a PhD the holder needs at least 9 accepted international articles to become a University Professor. The holder of an M.A, if he did not do the PhD, at least 12 accepted papers published in international media to become a University Professor. However, most people are doing the PhD now before teaching in the University.

The same holds for the University librarian To obtain the title UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN, a person must have the same number of articles as a University Professor. I know a University librarian who became a University Vice Chancellor because of his academic performance and work. Please, English is the scientific language that helps people to climb the academic ladder. We need this for the future of any country.

I travelled once from New York, sitting side by side in the plane with a French couple. The man was an aeronautics engineer but regretted very much that he did not know English that would have helped him in life to advance in his field. This was not a person who only admired the scientific language but wished to advance in his profession.

When attending a conference at a certain time at UNESCO in Paris, one of our former teachers in Paris said in a loud voice “pour voir les bonnes bibliothéques il faut traverser la manche;” i.e. to see good libraries one has to cross the English Channel. My appeal to French speaking Cameroonians is that they should let the structures of education as they are and learn to do more to improve theirs. The advance of humanity is in the scientific field and not in a diplomatic language aimed at cheating people. I intentionally made this article short.

We were told at a time that a Federation was expensive. If we count the Governmental structures now, it is by far larger than the simple federation which was said to be expensive at the time of abolition. If opinion polls were possible in Cameroon (it will take at least 50 years for people to know this) the result will show that the ordinary person likes the English liberal system. We cannot talk about public debates relating to the so called reforms.

Snatching bits of a system and calling it reform will leave it naked to please the few. Fortunately, the administration does not always accept what people in their black suits proposed. For what was Empire Day and became Youth Day; we competed in sports and football matches. Now the children are too young to go in for football competitions but can do other sports. There is a new unnecessary item for the First School Leaving Certificate of Examination. Children are made to do sports. How does and will this help them? Is it because it has been the French speaker’s domain? Let us look at this and study the benefit.

What will benefit children is language and mathematics that they need for the future. I have already said that English is going down the drain.