Nursery, Primary, Secondary, and High School Teachers including the University of Buea and Bamenda lecturers have called for an industrial strike on November 21st for a number of reasons. They are joining the Common Law Lawyers who have been protesting now for over a month.
In a communiqué that was released on October 26th, 2016 by All Teachers Trade
Unions and Associations of Anglophone Extraction, they listed a number of worries.
- The withdrawal and re-posting of all French-speaking teachers from Anglophone classrooms with the exception of bilingual teachers.
- The withdrawal of francophone lecturers and administrators from Anglo-Saxon universities of Bamenda and Buea and their colleges of education.
- The recruitment of competent Anglophones to teach in various departments of colleges and faculties of the university of Bamenda.
- The withdrawal and re-orientation of all francophones reading English modern letters in Higher Teachers training college Bambili and other schools of education in Cameroon to departments where they have an academic background.
on these grounds the teachers are demanding:
– The deployment of Anglophone teachers sent to francophone colleges
– The immediate halt of the practice of sending francophone student teachers to practice on Anglophone students.
– The immediate stoppage of CAP, PROBATOIRE TECHNIQUE and BACCALAUREAT TECHNIQUE from the English sub-system.
– The creation of the Cameroon National council and Le ConseilNational de L’education du Cameroun (CNC/CNEC)
– The institution of a mandatory one-year industrial attachment program for trainees of the Higher Technical Teacher’s Training College Bambili and Kumba.
It should be noted that these complaints have been submitted to government 10 months ago and none of their demands have been met, rather there is an overtly intensified devious machination to wreak havoc on Anglophones and their sub-system of education thereby pushing them to the fringes of social and educational advancement.
In light of this lamentable situation whereby Anglophones are continuously denigrated, subjugated and treated as a colonised people while children are groomed for slavery, these associations have together declared an indefinite strike action while urging the government NOT to use their machinery of force to provoke any stakeholder or carry out any action that might lead to loss of life and/or property.
“..Just take a look at the faculty of engineering, University of Buea. Anglophones have no place there. Over 85% of the first and second-year students are Francophones. Most Anglophones who did very well at the GCE did not succeed in getting into the school. I think we also have to talk to the VCs and Deans of all Anglophone Universities, to make sure Anglophone children are given priority. Francophones have engineering schools in Yaounde, Douala, yet want to deprive Anglophones from Buea. It is also necessary to take a look at the entrance exams into ENSET Kumba/Bambili and also ENS. Over 90% of the intakes are Francophones. This explains why Anglophone Universities are littered with the French language everywhere. It is indeed, not only outright marginalization but an educational genocide. It should be recalled that the moral standards in most of our mission schools have dropped because of the infiltration of francophone children…”