Anglophone Teacher says “wasted” five years in purely Francophone school despite Anglo-Saxon training

By Tata Mbunwe


A teacher who received purely Anglo-Saxon training in Woodwork has lamented he was posted at a French school in Kong Kong village in Garoua where, for over five years, he has been “doing nothing.”

Despite soliciting for a transfer to a bilingual technical Institution, he regrets the request has not been granted for five years now.

Speaking on the basis of anonymity, he says he was posted at a government technical school in Garoua five years ago but has been idling over the years because the school doesn’t have a wood work department where he is supposed to teach.
 
 “I was posted to Garoua at a small village call Kong kong, in 2015. I was trained to teach in English, but posted to a pure French school. To make matters worst, I am among other a woodwork teachers, but woodwork department is not in that school where I was posted. I have done everything humanly possible to be transferred to any Government Bilingual Technical school where my field of studies is so that I can be  able to teach as I was trained to, but it has yielded no fruits,” he said.

He added that he has been unable to exercise his teaching duties for five years.

“Five years has passed, I am being wasted doing nothing and the worst of it all is my health situation. I have developed yeast cells due to lack of portable water and this  is drawing me closer to the grave. Please I need help. Let the Government do something about it.”

This teacher might just be one of the many English-speaking teachers in Cameroon who are being posted to lecture in French schools without any prior training in the French system of education.

This also occurs the other way round where French speaking teachers are being sent to lecture in purely Anglophone schools.

This was a major concern raised by Anglophone teachers in November 2016 when they staged a strike in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon that cued up with an ongoing lawyers’ strike, resulting in the current Anglophone Crisis.
 
However, government has defended this by holding that this shuffling of teachers from English-speaking to French-speaking schools will help to promote bilingualism among civil servants which is one of state policies.
 


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