GTHS Ombe crying for attention

Students demonstrating technical know- 

how in auto mobile & applied mechanics workshop

GTHS Ombe is now a shadow of what it was over six decades ago when it was created. The machines and equipment in workshops are still the ones installed in 1952 at its creation. This was the declaration of the principal of the school during the launching of the open door days for technical schools, on March 21, 2014.

By Sarah Nkongho Ojong in Ombe

Created in 1952, Government Technical High School, GTHS Ombe (the mother of all technical schools in West Cameroon) still makes use of the obsolete equipment that were installed at its creation.

                The 62 year old technical institute is in dire need of maintenance and rehabilitation, said the principal of the school, as he launched activities for the open door days for 2014 on campus recently.

                The open door days for technical and vocational education provide a platform for students of technical education to exhibit their technological know-how and demonstrate practical skills they have acquired during their stay at school.  

                Observing the students during the two-day workshop, we noticed that the students manifested great enthusiasm for their trades despite the obsolete machines at their disposal. At the auto-mobile and mechanics workshop students demonstrated the mechanisms involved in car engines and deciphered car problems using computer software.

                 At the department of welding and metal fabrication we noticed that the department is still grappling with old, manually adapted and dilapidated equipment. Despite this, the students were still able to produce and expose samples of doors, wheel-barrows and trucks that they produced.

                The Vice Principal in charge of the industrial section of GTHS, Mr Kenye Leon also lamented the many difficulties they face due to lack of equipment in the workshops. “Ombe can boast of quality teachers and better constructed workshops when compared to other technical schools in the country, but the reality is that the equipment are out-dated, out-moded and obsolete,” Kenye Leon said, remarking that teaching technology to students only in theory cannot make them technicians.

                The shortcomings not withstanding, GTHS Ombe is still struggling to live up to its standards of yore, the principal, Douma Paul Laurent affirmed. “We are doing all we can to offer the best to students using the resources at our disposal. But we are appealing to government to consider measures to renovate the school, which has maintained its status as one of the best technical schools in Cameroon,” he concluded.