The venue was the North West Governor’s conference hall where the members of the Inter-ministerial Ad hoc Committee to review and propose solutions to the concerns raised by Cameroon Anglophone Teachers Trade Unions meeting is holding.
After the last meeting that ended in a fiasco as the trade union leaders walked out, this time around all were present and ready to dialogue. One aspect that set the stage was that the government granted some of the demands of the trade union leaders such as the inclusion of trade union leaders as well as educational stake holders from the South West Region and also the release of some of the young people that were caught in Bamenda, transferred and detained in Yaounde after the December 8, 2016 confrontations with the
forces of law and order. With these, all came prepared to spend long hours for the betterment of the Anglophone subsystem of education.
The Ministers of Higher Education, Jacques Fame Ndongo, Secondary Education Jean Ernest Masssena Ngalle Bibehe and that of Basic Education Youssouf Hadidja Alim were all on sit to give instant solutions to some of the issues raised by the teachers’ trade unions. While opening the meeting, the committee Chairperson Professor Paul Ghogomu Mingo requested members to work as a team and to show a high sense of responsibility as well as bring in meaningful proposals for a successful English Subsystem of education. He called on stakeholders to consider the school children that have been home for more than one month and pleaded with them to pity the school children and that they should not be the sacrificed generation, consequently they should bring up recommendations for
schools to reopen soonest.
Concerns Already Addressed He reminded them that the government has already shown good faith in addressing some of the concerns raised by the teachers before the Thursday’s January 12, 2017 meeting, such as the redeployment of teachers, which he said the North West and South West have received about 100 in the less than 200 teachers affected.
He further explained that this is just the first step by the Minister of Secondary Education as more is to come. He asked stakeholders to dialogue with a constructive spirit and as children of one nation to consolidate the most cherished English sub system of education
in Cameroon.
Worth mentioning is that this time around even the agenda was put up for correction and adoption before the meeting. The meeting that started at 11: 17 am saw members in conclave till about 5 p.m. when they came out for a break. Information that filtered out was that the committee had discussed and agreed on three out of the 18 points put up for discussions. They included, firstly the creation of a Polytechnique for the Anglophone subsystem for the GCE Advanced level Technical students, secondly that a French department be created in ENS Bambili which will train French teachers to teach in English schools. To this, the Minister of Higher Education said it will be done before the end of next week. Thirdly, the redeployment of Francophone teachers who have studied under the francophone system and are teaching in Anglophone subsystem to go back to the francophone subsystem.
To this it was said that the process is ongoing and will end by January 30, 2017. In all, frank and genuine dialogue is currently on and from the look of things the deadlock might be broken at the end of the meeting.