Teachers’ strike grounds schools in B’da

By Njodzefe Nestor in Bamenda

As promised government teachers of basic and secondary education have embarked on a nation wide strike which has grounded classes in institutions in the country with Bamenda getting its own share.
    The industrial action was announced at a press conference in Yaounde on February 5, 2014. According to a release issued after the conference signed by 11 Trade Union Leaders of the Basic and Secondary Education sectors, the strike which started on February 17 is expected to end on February 22 for the first phase and another to start from April 28 to May 2, 2014.

    When this reporter visited GBHS Down Town Bamenda to assess the effectiveness of the strike, he observed students in classrooms without teachers with some students idling around the school campus. When one of the students, Neba Yvonne, a form four student was asked why she was loitering outside, she said teachers have not been coming to class. She regretted that they only come to school and idle going back home without learning any thing.
    At the press conference and on behalf of the Trade Unions, the Secretary General of the National Autonomous Trade Union of Secondary and High School Teachers, SNAES, Roger Kaffo Fokou, told reporters that “since February 6, 2012, the teachers’ trade unions have been negotiating with the Cameroon Government so long lasting solutions can be arrived as regards the grievances of the teachers.
    “After 24 months of negotiation within the ad-hoc committee put in place by the Prime Minister Head of Government, to assess and propose solutions to the numerous problems of teachers, these negotiations led to several accords and elaborated several texts” the release states.
    It continues that although the accords “were submitted since April 2012 for signature to the highest hierarchy. The Prime Minister has signed the text regulating the awards of academic distinctions to teachers while the other texts are at the level of the presidency”
    According to the release some of the things which are waited are for the text to raise the index bar for the teaching corps, the integration of Sports and Physical Education teachers as well as Youth and Sports animators into the ministries of education, the integration of all contract teachers in Basic and Secondary Education, and the text to raise the research and documentation allowances in the teaching corps.
    As part of the strategy to ensure the seriousness of the industrial action, the release instructs teachers to withhold marks for the 4th, 5th and 6th sequential tests as well as other administrative documents.