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Cameroon |
UNIVERSITIES
University lecturers are busy choosing between time-wasting, changing profession
or emigrating.
Their choices are limited
Professors in Cameroon are gladly trying to make the best of a bad job. Over a thousand of them have chosen to teach in universities or institutes of higher education. It is a profession which calls for great dedication. Some of them are asking why they earn less then 200,000 CFA francs when they are teaching in universities with an abundance of students and non-existent structures.
According to the National Union of Lecturers in Higher Education (SYNES), improvement in the living and work environment should be a priority for government. A member of SYNES declared: «There is no reason why the salaries of some groups like the army and the judiciary should be raised and not ours». The payment of their arrears of supplements for research and other hours of overtime, is done in dribs and drabs and is calculated as if the university were doing them a favour.
Teachers complain of bad working conditions. The majority do not have an office. Toilets are non-existent in some universities. People can hardly remember when those that exist had ever functioned. And the sorry spectacle of students and teachers face to face behind the lecture halls is not amusing. In some establishments, cockroaches and mice have taken over in the libraries. In the University of Douala, the lecture rooms do not have enough benches. In Yaoundé I, the lecture halls, suffering from old age, have no lighting. A computer is a luxury. As for the state of the laboratories...no comment!
Faced with this alarming situation, the reaction of the Minister of Higher Education, Jean-Marie Atangana Mebarra, was enthusiastically received by both students and lecturers. He said that the Ministers of Industry and Finance as well as the President of the Republic could be relied on to resolve these problems gradually. But a year later nothing has been done.
Some accuse the minister of double-dealing. Others concede that there is good-will on the part of the minister but that he is weighted down by the sluggishness of the different departments. «The joint mission of the World Bank and IMF, which is now at work in Cameroon, would not look favourably on any decisions which would have the effect of upsetting the equilibrium of public finances» was the final explanation given by Mr. Mebarra on 22 February.
Mr. Ambrose Kom, now a professor in Morocco, gives a diagnosis of a profession which is going downhill: «On the whole, it is not good to be a lecturer at a University in Cameroon, for this career has lost all meaning. The professor is a researcher in the first place, and we can no longer do that because we are absorbed in trivial matters, like the problem of daily survival... we have become teachers who daily repeat matters which have been recorded here and there».
Resourcefulness
In fact for the last ten years, lecturers have, like other Cameroonians, found a solution to make ends meet, namely their resourcefulness. One lecturer uses his holidays to teach in a private secondary school; another opens a shop in the Essos quarter of Yaoundé; others call themselves «international consultants», a very grand title which might attract some lucrative contracts. Many contact international organisations to take advantage of better conditions of work and take part in consultative committees. The signatures of university professors often appears in articles in local newspapers, for which they are paid a pittance. They also explore another outlet for their talents: the Non-Governmental Organisations. Thus they might be found on a mission to Canada or spend a week in a luxury hotel in Geneva, all expenses paid.
Besides, some lecturers have abandoned their position for a an ejector seat in government. For example, Augustin Kontchou Kuomegni, Joseph Owona, Joseph Mbedé, Titus Edzoa, Stanislas Melogne, Marcien Towa, all of whom are well-known internationally recognised senior lecturers, are now lost to the higher education scene in Cameroon. According to one source, in ten years, politics has absorbed five university chancellors, and some twenty senior lecturers or professors. They have allowed themselves to be seduced by the attractions of power and rejected the lecture halls when they lost their ministerial posts.
University lecturers, who have chosen to be faithful to their role as intellectuals, to awaken people’s conscience by denouncing the abuses of power, are given a hard time for their ideas. Many are accused, like Socrates in antiquity, of «corrupting the young». The philosopher, Marcien Towa, suffered this kind of ostracism under the old regime of Hamadou Ahidjo. Likewise for the Kantian, Joseph Ngoué, who was forbidden to teach by one of his old pupils who became head of the Philosophy department. Jongwane Dipoko, president of SYNES, was suspended for two academic years because of his trade union activities. The same goes for other lecturers who were labelled as «rebels», and who saw the matter of their lectures relegated from being basic to electives.
Exodus
There exists another group of teachers who have not shied away from going into exile. Brain drain! A professor of the university of Yaoundé II claims that «There is not a single university teacher who could deny that he has considered going abroad. Only lack of opportunity keeps him back.» The sexagenarian, Mr Tchindji Kouleu was once a researcher at the CNRS of Paris. He came back to Cameroon in 1972. After the twofold reduction of salaries, due to the structural adjustment program and the devaluation of the CFA franc, he again considered leaving. «I wrote to European and American universities, who had at one time wished to keep me. But they are no longer interested; they consider that I’m too old».
When the opportunity presents itself, few can resist the decision to leave, in order to avoid misery and humiliation. Assistant lecturers, tutors, senior lecturers may be found today in South Africa as well as in Europe and America. According to a non-exhaustive list which is already very impressive, the Anyangwe couple (husband and wife, both former lecturers at the old university of Yaoundé) are now in South Africa. Fotsing Jean-Marie, head of the geography department, is now in France. But most lecturers from Cameroon are to be found in Canada and the United States. Clément Mbom and his wife are living in New York; Lovet Elango, a senior lecturer, is also in USA. Professor Djeuma, former dean of the faculty of science, Félix Afa’a, Dieudonné Mouaffo of the history department, Abbé Jean-Marc Ela, a sociologist and a political exile, all now live in Canada. Professor Pierre Ngidjol is reported to be at the University of N’Djamena in Chad. As for Eboussi Boulaga, he has simply handed in his resignation and employs his time in editing his books and other research work.
To limit this massive brain drain, Titus Edzoa, one time minister for Higher Education, decided that university staff needed prior permission to leave the country. In 1994, Professor Stanislas Melogne was taken off a plane bound for Europe.
To restore the fortunes of university teachers, Jongwane Dipoko, a physicist of the trade unions, thinks that «the only way to restore respectability, consists in rebuilding a credible university institution. Considering the damage that currently has been done, it is a colossal task, well beyond the initiative of individuals. Higher education personnel must pull together against the fear of reprisals... all the rest will follow”.
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