HTTC Bambili stakeholders disagree over resolutions

Participants at a first ever Higher Teachers’ Training College (HTTC) Bambili Awareness Building Colloquium have disagreed with some resolutions/recommendations that were presented at the end of the session.

This maiden HTTC Community Outreach organized under the theme “Curricular Implications of the Profiles of the Applicants Seeking Admission into the HTTC, Bambili”, took place Friday May 15, 2015 at the auditorium of the University of Bamenda (UBa).

The imbroglio during the presentation of the resolutions was on the requirement for admission which most participants considered too tough. Some old hands in the profession even claimed that if that criterion was implemented, then the number of postulants will drop drastically whereas there is an acute shortage of teachers.

The resolution said that “In a bid to improve the quality of teaching only candidates who score a minimum of 10 points in the GCE A/L and Mention Bien in the Bac, should seek admission to HTTC”.

After so much row the resolutions committee decided to leave the matter to the Prime Minister’s discretion. Other resolutions included:

Students who feature amongst the best 10 at the GCE in any subject should be admitted without necessarily taking the entrance exam

With MCQs in place, consideration should equally be given to structural and essay questions during entrance exam

Other forms of impairments should also be considered, not just loss of any of the five senses

Curriculum should be structured to answer the “How” and “Why” questions

There must be a certain quota set aside for science students of the English subsystem of education

Such a colloquium should be a yearly event and the resolutions sent to policy makers.

The idea behind the colloquium was to sensitize stakeholders on its teacher training options and the extent of the competitiveness for these alternatives.

The main objective of this massively attended event as spelt out by the Vice Chancellor (VC) of UBa Prof Tafah Edokat Edward in his welcome address; “is to disseminate instructive experiences and statistics on HTTC gleaned over the years in order to build awareness about the competitive nature of entrance examinations into HTTC Bambili”.

At the start of the colloquium, the Director of HTTC, Prof. Bame Nsamenang provided facts clarifying procedural issues and realities on about HTTC. He said the ministry created Computer science department and lodged it only in the technical section and not in the general education which equally needs it.

The Director went on to say that when the ministry cut out HTTC Bambili from Yaounde, it created 18 departments which do not yet exist. Also there are ten First Cycle departments excluding philosophy and computer sciences.

He added that bribery, corruption and other vices characterize admission into HTTC but he is determined as current head of HTTC to stop corruption.

He then drew the attention of participants to the fact that HTTC Bambili is a national school and not one for the North West Region.

To meet the colloquium’s objective, nine papers were presented and discussed:

The Deputy VC of UBa Prof. Nyasse Barthelemy opened the discussions with “Benchmarking Admission Conditions and Norms for Entry into the Teaching Profession”. He wondered what HTTC can do in increasing a benchmark of its teachers as compared to those from other teacher training colleges.

According to the Deputy VC, becoming a teacher should not be a last resort but that a normal teacher should have an appeal for the job thus it should be a vocation.

Prof. Nyasse suggested that what is happening elsewhere be replicated in Bambili. He wondered what the future of big halls will be since with the evolution of technology students can choose when and where to study as lessons can be recorded and placed online for all to access.

The Registrar of the GCE Board Dr. Humphrey Monono was next with “Experience of the GCE Board and their Implications for Teacher Training”. His presentation indicated a very poor performance in the compulsory subjects Maths, French and English Language even though these are given more teaching hours per week. The Registrar also complained of a lack of qualified personnel in Commercial and Industrial subjects.

Next in line were Dr. Nguendjio E. and Prof. Tita M. whose presentation was titled “Competitive Entrance Examinations into the First and Second Cycles of HTTC: Some Hidden ‘Facts’ in Statistic”. Their presentation focused on the 2014 entrance exam into HTTC which showed that the bulk of the applicants and the bulk of science candidates were Francophones.

A majority of the few Anglophones who postulate for the HTTC go in for the Arts subjects. Another issue is that most of the applicants performed very poorly in the GCE. In effect 84% of those who applied in 2014 had just 2 papers at A/L and only 16% had 3 papers and above.

On his part, the Director of HTTC Prof. Bame Nsamenang presented a paper on “Cumulative Deficit Syndrome Young Cameroonians bring into the First and Second Cycles of HTTC: Probable Sources and Potential Solutions”. According to Prof. Bame, at admission, students have considerable deficits which the institution most often cannot erase in either 3 years of the first cycle or 2 years of the second cycle.

Other speakers included the Regional Delegate of Secondary Education for the North West Sunjo George who spoke on “GCE O/L and A/L statistics for his region in Arts and Science Subjects and the Career Prospects of Boys and Girls”. There was also Richard Chin whose paper centered on “Manager/Parent’s Perspective on the Academic Profile and Personal Comportment of Applicants into Cameroonian Universities”.

Valentine Semma talked on “Teacher Training and Cameroon’s Vision 2015: Achievements, Gaps, Mismatches and Prospects”; and last but not the least was Prof. Shadrack Ambanasom whose paper was on “Language and Communication Challenges to Teacher Training in HTTC Bambili.

Discussions after Paper Presentations

The deliberations that ensued indicated that there was general dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs in the HTTC Bambili. Stakeholders of the Anglophone subsystem of education are uncomfortable with the seeming dominant influx of Francophone candidates in the institution and also the deployment of Francophones to teach English speaking students but who cannot express themselves in English.

The colloquium was also a forum to stamp out the notion of corruption in the admission process as the Director of HTTC Bambili challenged anyone who had proof of anyone having given or received bribe for the admission of a candidate to come up and say it .

One of the participants who is a principal complained that HTTC Bambili was created to train teachers for the Anglophone subsystem of education but that he has a case of a purely Francophone Chemistry Teacher who was sent to his school even though he cannot say a word in English where all the students are English speaking.

The Executive Secretary of the Cameroon Teachers Trade Union CATTU, Tassang Wilfred said CATTU has no problem with Francophones being trained in institutions for the Anglophone sub system of education but it frowns at who the francophone candidates are trained for.

Reacting to the statistics presented by the GCE Board Registrar, Tassang Wilfred said out of 225 Public colleges in the northwest region, there are more than half of these without French and Math teachers thus accounting for the poor performances in those subjects.

In reaction, Prof. Bame acknowledged the deficiencies and added that the forum was meant to gather suggestions on what should be done to better the situation and not play a blame game. He concluded that HTTC’s role is to train and not to deploy teachers. Prof. Bame concluded that the question on the issue of deploying Francophone teachers to teach in Anglophone schools should be directed to the Ministry in charge.

General Participants’ Proposals

Present for the colloquium was a retired teacher who doubles as a CPDM Central Committee member and Alternate Senator, Regina Mundi. She advocated strongly that other national institutions in the country east of the Mungo should equally practice regional balance as much as is practiced in the University of Bamenda.

To her it would seem there is an excessive stress on regional balance only when it comes to institutions of the Anglophone sub system of education. The Alternate Senator added that in the admission of candidates, a special quota should be reserved only for science students of the Anglophone subsystem of education.

Prof. Nyasse Barthelemy proposed that students be trained taking internationalization into consideration such that they can be deployed anywhere in the world citing the cases of Indonesia and Finland that have what he termed the best qualities of conditions or requirements to become a teacher. Above all the professor recommended that compensation to teachers be carefully thought about and the said compensation should be standardized.

Dr. Humphrey Monono recommended that HTTC should be at the heart of government and initiatives; that policies designed by HTTC should benefit many and not just a few; that standards should matter more than structure and finally that there should be zero tolerance to examination malpractice.

Tassang Wilfred of CATTU proposed that students of HTTC should graduate with a First Degree so that they can proceed to the Second Cycle and be able to fill the gap of shortage of English speaking teachers in and out of HTTC.

Also present at the inaugural Awareness Building Colloquium were the representative of the North West Regional Governor Joseph Nji who is the head of Division for Social, Cultural and Economic Affairs at the Governor’s Office.

At the close of the colloquium, Regina Mundi observed that all the criticisms were meant to move the Bamenda University ahead and place it on the same level with other state universities.

Above all the main concern was to make Cameroon have ideal teachers since everyone is what they are now because they passed through the hands of teachers.