Peterkins Manyong
10 October 2008
Sunday, October 5, teachers in Cameroon once more joined their counterparts the world over to celebrate World's Teachers Day. The theme of this year's celebration was "Rights and Obligations of Teachers."
This theme is a call on teachers to understand that while they expect to live from the proceeds of their occupation, they owe the community an obligation to discharge their God-given duty to the utmost of their ability. This is exactly the opposite of what a majority of Cameroonian teachers do.
Even women whom the whole province knows to be spinsters or even part-time prostitutes present marriage certificates to indicate that they need to be with their husbands in town.
The result of this is that schools in towns are overflowing with teachers, while those in rural areas are grossly understaffed.Equally horrifying is the phenomenon of "married bachelors" who earn fabulous amounts as family allowances for children they have never fathered.
Bush-faller Teachers
Worse than the grumbling "doki" type are the "bush faller teachers." These are teachers that are resident abroad but who continue to earn their salary while doing other jobs abroad; this, with the connivance of their principals or headmasters. Each time they learn that a census of civil servants is underway they rush back home, answer present and return to their abode abroad.
Quite often, a jobless university graduate or a less qualified teacher is hired to teach on his or her behalf for a token.Teaching which used to be a noble profession has become an ignoble one. Teachers have become like Jews who tear their own dresses when they are angry. Because their pay package is never enough, the children suffer neglect or even exploitation.
What Mathew Takwi the Poet says about the university lecturer is true of most teachers. He quotes the lecturer as telling a female student that her marks lie around the region of her pubic hair.
Corruption in schools does not end at the phenomenon of "sexually transmitted marks." Teachers actually exchange marks for money. Because children view elders as role models they consider what their teachers do as the acceptable rule. Most of these teachers, those in lay private and some mission primary schools are sometimes poorer than the students or pupils. Teachers with commendable pay packages are, however, not left out of the rat race for more money.Why?
The reasons are not far to fetch; people who have been oppressed or exploited by others usually have an irresistible urge to mete out to others what they themselves suffered. To put the matter less equivocally, most of these teachers bribed the authorities of the school where they trained before they were admitted.
To them it is logical a matter of equity of demand from their subordinates what they suffered at the hands of their superiors.The case of a teacher who died after failing to channel bribe money to the right quarters is still fresh in the minds of many.
"Doki" Teacher And "Married Bachelors"
The case of fraudulent documents popularly called "Doki" is more common among teachers than other civil servants. Christopher Nde Soh Boma, Northwest Delegate of Basic Education told this analyst that his office is daily inundated with appeals for transfer from rural areas to towns. And every teacher making the appeal has a medical certificate indicating the unsuitability of the climate of the area where he or she has been posted.
Counterfeit Recruitment
This is the latest of those gimmicks that rock our elementary education sector. Government recently announced the recruitment of 5,500 teachers to meet up with the crying need for teachers. Logically, preference should have been given to those teachers already recruited and paid by the Parent Teacher Associations, PTA, or student teachers who left teacher training colleges earlier.
But the whole affair has become a business transaction. Middle men emerged acting as go-betweens, taking documents, many of them fake, from job seekers to authorities of the Basic Education Ministry.
The result of this is that teachers who left school only last year or even persons who never attended teacher training colleges have been employed in place of real professionals. Haman Adama is being blamed for all that has happened, but this is surely because as head of the Basic Education family she is the one placed where the heaviest blows fall.
In fairness to her, she has done her best to bring order to her Ministry. Her best is simply not good enough as her subordinates continue to flout her orders.
How The Mighty Have Fallen
The greatness of teachers is testified by the Bible which tells us how cherished this category of persons had been. The title Christ was most proud of is that of "Rabbi" which means teacher. We have recalled in this column not only this fact, but also the fact that great politicians like Yoweri Museveni, Julius Nyerere and at the Cameroonian level S.T Muna, J. N Foncha, were formerly teachers.
Instilling of moral rectitude in students using the cane has been the responsibility of teachers from time immemorial. Hence we hear great writers like Lord Byron telling teachers "O ye who teach the ingenious youths of nations ... I beg you, flog them upon all occasions it mends their morals, never mind the pain." We also hear Henry Fielding's Roger Thwakum in "Tom Jones" telling his pupil in latin "Castigo te nom odio habeam, sed quod amem (I chastise you not out of hatred but out of love).
The village headmaster is till date a point of reference although a round of drinks that excludes others in a bar is termed a "teacher's round". What is simply termed bitter leaf when eaten by a teacher (in the past) is known as "ndole" when the consumer is a Director or Minister. Yet the teacher is still expected to carry out his responsibility because they are dictated from heaven.
Teachers are like gold. If gold should rust what do we expect of iron? The master satirist Chaucer asks. Government should ensure teachers are properly recruited and their pay package is good enough to help them resist the temptation aroused by poverty.
The Biya Regime has no moral authority to blame teachers for being corrupt and irresponsible when its top officials have the same unenviable behaviour.Corruption is so difficult to eradicate because it is planted in the mind at childhood. The frequent accounts of how people bribe their entry into professional schools engrave in the child's mind the idea that success in exams can only come through bribery.
Hence each time a candidate is preparing for a competitive examination the question is not "how many books have you read?" "But how much have you kept aside as bribe money?" How can a candidate who bribes his or way into a professional school not be expected to retrieve the amount spent by foul means?
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Post. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
