By Ojong Steven Ayukogem in Yaounde
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| Fame Ndongo |
UB lecturers have submitted a strongly-worded Memo through the Vice Chancellor of UB to the President of the Republic, the Senate, the National Assembly, the PM’s Office, the MINESUP and the Embassies of USA, Britain and EU. They are urging the authorities to call the Minesup to order, in the interest of peace on campuss.
The UB lecturers’ Memo was the outcome of a meeting of SYNES UB Chapter and its council of advisers, on Wednesday 13 May 2015, to discuss the scheme by the MINESUP to harmonize academic programmes in state universities so as to enhance mobility of students from one state university to another. It was convened sequel to the meeting on 5 May 2015, at the MINESUP in Yaounde during which proposals were made towards the harmonization of academic programmes in all state universities.
In their memo, UB lecturers wondered why the committee that was set-up by Prof. Fame Ndongo to study and come forth with a plan for the harmonization scheme only thought of eradicating the Common Law (English Private Law) and other related disciplines fashioned in purely Anglo-Saxon model like Accountancy, Management, Political Science etc from the university curriculum.
“We perceive the minister’s scheme as a ploy to destroy the Anglo-Saxon Culture of UB,” the lecturers remarked, noting that Fame Ndongo’s scheme manifestly undermines the spirit of the University Reforms proposed by President Biya in the early 1990s, which sought to diversify university training rather than concentrate them in a few disciplines which do not facilitate employment and entrepreneurship.
UB lecturers mustered strong that academic programs at UB including Journalism and Mass Communication, Accountancy, Banking and Finance, Business Management, Nursing, Political Sciences, Medical Laboratory Technology among others are fully professionalized and tailored to suit the demands of the job market.
They noted that because of the highly professionalized degree programmes offered at UB, graduates from the institution are rushed after by employers especially employers from the burgeoning private sector.
“Apart from the fact that UB graduates are well molded for the job market, they are also well equipped to embrace self-employment,” the lecturers argued, wondering why the MINESUP thinks it necessary and expedient to review the programmes offered at UB.
“It is surprising that today the MINESUP wants to undo all the years of hard work in the direction of professionalizing academic programmes at UB, and the good results obtained,” remarked the lecturers in their memo, further noting that by the harmonization scheme the MINESUP was only reverting to the hopeless years of the lone university of Yaounde that churned out thousands of ill-equipped degree holders annually, into the streets, with no hope of ever getting a job.
UB lecturers boasted that programs at UB are viable and competitive enough and any proposal to suppress them through harmonization can only be suspect.
They pointed out for example that Common Law (English Private Law) is unique to Anglophones and forms the bedrock and foundation for legal practice by students in future. “A Law Degree from UB opens the floodgates of Law Schools in USA, Britain, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana etc to UB Law graduates,” the lecturers said, expressing fears that this universal and international recognition enjoyed by UB degrees in such domains as law, accountancy, banking and finance, business management, journalism and mass communication etc, will only be compromised when the programmes are tainted with the French system, under the guise of an incongruous harmonization scheme.
UB lecturers are therefore calling on the powers that be to urge Fame Ndongo to stop his project that is only “designed to dismantle carefully designed degree programmes at UB. The lecturers say the projects smacks of glaring bad faith and disregard for the Anglophone sub-system of education especially given that Cameroon is officially and legally a bi-lingual, bi-cultural and bi-jural country.
It should be mentioned here that the petition by UB lecturers comes on the heels and barely one week after Common Law Lawyers met in conclave in Bamenda and condemned strongly and without reserve, efforts by the Minister of Justice to gradually and systematically erode the Common Law by appointing Francophone Judges in Courts in the English Speaking portions of Cameroon.
Common Law Lawyers have also tabled an ultimatum to government (Presidency, Senate, N.A and the Minjustice) urging the authorities to stop all policies aimed at eroding the Common Law in a Bi-Jural, Bi-lingual and Bi-Cultural Cameroon. The lawyers have also submitted copies of their memo at foreign embassies in Yaounde.
Observers say the actions of Common Law Lawyers and UB lecturers only compliment earlier petitions addressed to Yaounde authorities by Anglophone Parliamentarians, school teachers, journalists, musicians, civil servants and especially SCNC activists, who have missed no opportunity in pointing out the discrimination, tribalism, nepotism, bad faith and exclusion inherent in major national policies and which only make citizens from the former Southern Cameroons the target of assimilation, marginalization and destruction in their own fatherland.
See full text of UB lecturers’ memo on page 4
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