All Anglophone Teacher Trade Unions
We have been induced, albeit reluctantly,
to come out of our reclusiveness, born of the bristling hostility that greeted
our 4th February 2017 suspension of the teachers’ strike, by some members of
the education family and other worried stakeholders but especially by
journalists worried by what they define as an alarming information vacuum. Of
capital importance was the fact that that many who came to see us or called
expressed the worry that in every project, there must be constant evaluation
and planning for proper stock-taking, so that any progress made is laid bare
for collective appraisal. We thus step out to make a number of observations.
On
an opening note, we observe that in the suspension notice, we decried the heavy
military presence in the Anglophone regions, as well as the incessant arrests
and intimidations, the derailment of the strike and the unnecessary delays,
generalized misinformation, misjudgments, anger and haste that combined to
poison the atmosphere. We made a clarion appeal to H. E. the President of the
Republic and Head of State to “grant amnesty and show clemency to those
arrested in order to heal the land so that responsible behavior, harmony,
cohesion and trust may be restored in our communities”. We still re-iterate
that appeal, from the bottom of our really aggrieved hearts.
Permit
us to inform public opinion in all sincerity that our suspension of the strike
was under-propped by a number of well-meaning considerations, especially the
fact that two of our spokespersons on different occasions asserted without
equivocation before the ad hoc deliberations ended, and we were on hand to
prove the veracity of the assertions, that we had worked on the terms of
reference and deadlines in stress-free conditions, void of intimidation.
The
fact that the eleven (11) grievances tabled before the Education Ad Hoc were
stretched to more than nineteen (19) and rigorously analysed was indeed
comforting. Indeed a close look at the ad hoc resolutions, many of which are
composite, will show that exactly forty-five (45) core issues were discussed
and streamlined into short, middle and long term gains, together with at least
six other issues that were not within the Education Ad Hoc’s competence to
handle.
An
ad hoc committee is a special committee set up specifically to address a
specific issue, after which it is dissolved. It goes therefore without saying
that an ad hoc on education can handle only educational issues, not those of
health, nor of the economy, nor of the legal and/or judicial domains, nor of
politics! We believe the discussions of the Education Ad Hoc were
satisfactorily completed and what is left is for the members of the follow up
committee, some of who are the trade union leaders, to oversee the implementations.
We
are comforted to note that the Government has been displaying some good faith
in implementing some of the resolutions, even if not so much with respect of
the set deadlines:
- The
progressive re-deployment of secondary and technical teachers whose respective
operational languages are English and French into contexts where they can
operate in function of their training and competence;
- The
draft project to increase the number of specialties in English speaking
technical schools in the 2017/2018 Academic year and the creation of the new
department of technology and mathematics and obtain such an extension for the
nearly lost academic year as will make the certificates genuine whenever they
are obtained.
While
observing that the social, moral and academic ramifications of this education
strike have been quite telling on all and sundry, and opining that it might be
time for all actors – opinion leaders, spiritual leaders, everybody – to seek
to heal the land and move forward in expectation, we nevertheless agree that
the work of the Ad Hoc Committee that was handling the grievances tabled by the
lawyers ended prematurely. Thus we appeal that the Government should re-launch
the talks in that ad hoc in order to aspire for holistic solutions to the
problems plaguing our community and so hope for proper, general healing.
We
deem it necessary to make this clear: that all the teacher trade union leaders
were not members of the consortium. Those of us who resisted affiliating were
driven by the conviction that as trade union leaders in charge of Basic and
Secondary Education, we had to stay focused on educational issues especially as
our fundamental law, the 1998 law of Orientation, in Section 8 (p4), makes it
clear that “Education shall be apolitical”.
While
thanking the press and that prodding cross-section of the public for their
insistent calls that have finally forced this reluctant press statement to come
out after all, we hereby state with the fear of the Lord who sits high on His
throne that the stories being peddled that we were bribed with fabulous sums of
money are fake and spurious attempts to incense the population. We challenge
anybody with concrete, palpable proof to bring it to the light and shame us,
and we caution that society must always build our foundations on love, not on
fabrications, rumour peddling, sensationalism, back-stabbing, generalized
phobia and all forms of terror.
We
once again solicit government to temper justice with mercy and show
magnanimity, love and forgiveness to our kith and kin who have been indicted in
one way or the other, so that true healing will be experienced by experienced
by all the nation’s children. God bless us all.
Done this 27th day of February in the year
of our Lord, 2017
Sign:
Valentine
Semma, CATTU
Tameh
Valentine, TAC
Afuh Stephen, PEATTU
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