Bilingual training programme

Y’de Pilot Linguistic Centre begging for urgent facelift
The new Director of the Pilot Centre has made a request to government to construct bigger and more befitting structures to host the very important institution. Mrs. Edibi Fama Brigitte made the solemn request following her installation on Thursday 18 June 2015.
By Macquens Balemba in Yaounde

Mrs. Edibi Fama Brigitte

The Minister, Assistant Secretary General of the presidency has called on the newly appointed Director of the Yaounde Pilot Linguistic Centre to continue from where her predecessor ended and also give a feminine touch to the teaching of languages at the centre.
    Professor Peter Agbor Tabi was speaking on Thursday 18 June 2015, as he installed Mrs. Edibi Fama, nee Vundi Brigitte as Director of the Yaounde Pilot Linguistic Centre.
    The installation ceremony took place in the conference hall of the Yaounde Pilot Linguistic Centre situated at the administrative quarters, opposite the Ministry of Finance. The ceremony was witnessed among others by government ministers, directors, traditional leaders and an impressive crowd of well wishers and curious on-lookers.
    Installing the new Director, Prof. Agbor Tabi exhorted her to bring her high qualification, her rich experience and especially her feminine touch to bear on the running of the centre.
    “You are a lady who is highly qualified and full of experience. We have no doubt therefore that with your tested and proven qualities of devotedness, efficiency, method, celerity and above all abnegation, you will be able to render the Bilingual Training Programme more visible, dynamic and welcoming, and the working environment of the Yaounde Pilot Linguistic Centre more convivial,” Prof. Agbor Tabi said.

    The ASG of the Presidency reminded the new director that her mission is quite extensive; it covers all pedagogic, technical, administrative and financial matters relating to the functioning of the centre.
    He urged the new Director to give a feminine touch to the teaching of languages at the centre especially giving that “the Yaounde Pilot Centre and the other regional centres are the mirrors of the effort by President Paul Biya to foster effective bilingualism in Cameroon.”
    The ASG of the Presidency therefore called on Mrs. Edibi to encourage more and more persons to avail themselves of the facilities offered at the centre so that “in the next three or four years we can count about one million Cameroonians who have passed through the training centres.”
    Taking up her functions, Mrs Edibi Fama Brigitte thanked President Biya for bestowing his confidence in her and pledged to rise up to the challenge of the position. She promised to give a feminine touch to bilingual training programme and to get more and more women to make use of the facilities offered at the different training centres.
    “I call on the women to join me in this arduous mission; they should understand that this is our time. I urge the women to come massively, get registered and learn the two languages so that they can become truly and fully bilingual,” Mrs. Edibi said, also inviting the general public to register for the bilingual training programmes offered at the regional centres in the 10 regions of the country.
    The new director used the opportunity of the installation ceremony to make a solemn request to President Biya. She said with the ever-growing population of trainees at the Yaounde Pilot Centre, there was urgent need for government to construct a bigger and more befitting campus that will not only reflect the importance that the president attaches to bilingual training but also accommodate the ever-increasing population of trainees.   
    Before her appointment by presidential decree on 9 June 2015, Mrs Edibi Fama nee Vundi Brigitte was already a staff of the Pilot Centre where she occupied the position of research officer (charge d’etude) number 5. Mrs. Edibi now replaces Mr. Raphael Tchebetcho who was the pioneer Director of the centre and who is retiring after staying at the position for 24 years.
    The Bilingual Training Programme was created by President Biya in 1990 to foster bilingualism among civil servants. Today the training is also open to the general public.