Teachers call for release of jailed colleague in Sangmelima

Teachers, friends and well wishes of Mr Fongang Nathan have intensified calls for his release after he was picked up by security elements for using the ongoing crisis in the Anglophone regions as an example in class. His arrest they say, makes them scared they could be next.

“The competency based approach is what we all believe that build dream. For that dream to be a reality, we have to bring real situations. If the teacher is arrested then the nation is contradicting the same massage they are preaching” a teacher told MMI
“The teacher shouldn’t be arrested if he didn’t lie about the anglophone crisis” he added.

Another teacher, John Wirnsai says “the arrest of a the teacher in sagmalima for having perfectly used the CBA (competency based approach) teaching method is a big blow to the profession.”

The CBA is a method that puts the learner at the centre of teacher learning activity, as opposed to the objective based that was a method just aimed at attaining what the teacher coined as lesson objective.

“If the word kamto was the name of a test tube and Ayuk Tabe that of a chemical, with Paul biya being another chemical, this teacher would have brought these 3 to class and asked the students to mix the chemicals inside the test tube and say what they observe after their reaction observe. But since he wasn’t a science teacher and those names were not objects, he could only proceed by question and answer” Wirnsai notes.

This he explains, “is rather a shame and all of us are waiting to get the reaction of TAC, CATU, SYNAES etc on this matter.”

Mr Nathan another colleague told MMI, “risks losing his aptitude even if released tomorrow.”
“He might never be the good teacher he was before this arrest as a result of fear. The incident also risk having a multiplier effect on other teachers” he adds.

A 2013 graduate from the Teachers Training College, Nathan is still being held in detention since his arrest on September 13, despite several calls for his release.

*For security reasons, we had to alter the names of the teachers.

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