The Anglophone Problem in Cameroon: Focus on Education (original) (raw)
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The Anglophone problem in Cameroon: Focus on education.rtf
This article overviews the Cameroon Anglophone educational system from the origins, through the period of Reunification with La République du Cameroun, to the present time. In the process, it highlights the issues that have pushed Anglophone lawyers and teachers to launch a series of protests that have plagued the economy of West Cameroon and seriously affected a whole academic year. Some of the issues identified include the poor state of technical education in the area, the use of French in Anglophone courts and in secondary schools, the difficulty Anglophone students face in tertiary level education where French is dominant, and when writing competitive entrance examinations into professional schools, the programme of which is French-based. Possible solutions to these problems include the creation of technical schools like the former Ombe reference technical school, either the creation of Anglophone professional schools or the transfer of the duties of existing professional schools to university faculties, the re-designing of the English syllabus for francophone secondary schools and that of French for Anglophone schools and, most importantly, the systematic certification of bilingual competence in Cameroon which will, in due course, be made a requirement for recruitment, appointment and posting of civil servants.
English and French in Cameroon today: Revisiting a previous statement
This paper explores the recent trends regarding the maintenance and shift in the use/learning of French and English in Cameroon. While Ze Amvela in an earlier study had shown that the shift in language use/learning in Cameroon is towards the direction of the majority official language, French, recent trends show the reverse. A movement towards English has been observed in the last fifteen years. This is an interesting phenomenon due to the fact that it contradicts the usual trend. The current paper thus explores the motivations for, and implications of, this phenomenon for the learning and use of these two official languages in Cameroon in the near future.
THE ANGLOPHONE PROBLEM IN CAMEROON: IS IT BEYOND LANGUAGE
2017
Conventionally, the Anglophone Problem in Cameroon is perceived as that of a language crisis. The Anglophone Problem is usually described as the emergence of an Anglophone consciousness derived from the feeling of being " marginalized " , " exploited " and assimilated by the francophone-dominated state. In this context, a language crisis is understood as the forceful imposition of a language, on a group of people against their will (Hebert 2004) which is not the situation in Cameroon. However, my position is that this conflict goes way beyond that of a language crisis. This paper elaborates on the dynamics of this conflict by trying to examine other factors that place this conflict beyond being a mere conflict of language. It is argued in this paper that in addition to and more than a language crisis, the Anglophone problem has been accelerated by such factors as communal stratification, transition from a federal system to a unitary system, violation of constitutional provisions on judicial appointments and the fear of assimilation through education. Communal stratification refers to the political and economic inferior positions as well as under-representation in the Anglophone Community. Transition from a federal state to a unitary state resulted in the loss of autonomy of the Anglophone Community which generated the feeling of being " second class " citizens in the unitary state. The violations of constitutional provisions on judicial appointments, through the imposition of the civil law administrators in Anglophone common law courts is destroying the Anglophone judicial system and finally the fear of assimilation through education derived from the recruitment of " French-oriented " teachers into Anglophone schools are all aspects that aggravates this conflict. This paper will employ statistical data and secondary sources to study the perception of the Anglophone Community and show how this accelerates the Anglophone Problem in Cameroon.
Language Policy, 2019
Cameroon, host to around 280 local languages, two European official languages (English and French) and Pidgin English, has been struggling since the 1960s to achieve official bilingualism for national unity and integration. This policy implies that each citizen should learn and use both official languages. The greatest means to implement this language policy has been formal education. However, the failure or mitigated results of the State's initiatives to produce competent bilingual citizens led to a resurrection and fast dissemination of a defunct education programme launched by the State in 1963 and which consisted of a dual-medium (English and French) and dual-curriculum (British and French curricula) programme offered to a handful of selected Cameroonians. The many obstacles to this atypical and complex programme led the State to stopping the experiment. In 1989, an equivalent programme was launched in two private primary schools and, nowadays, dozens of such schools do the same nationwide without any official recognition. This study examines the State's tolerance of this very demanding but rapidly spreading programme operating outside the country's primary education curricula and pedagogical requirements, among other issues, but which seems so attractive to parents. This attractiveness comes from the fact that this dual-medium and dual-curriculum programme enables pupils to become competent bilinguals in English and French. However, because the programme entails extra burdens for parents and pupils, one of the findings this study arrives at is that the same degree of bilingualism could be obtained through a version of the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach.
The Hypothetical Question of Bilingual Education in Schools in Cameroon
Open Journal of Social Sciences
This article examines the implementation of bilingual education in secondary schools in the Republic of Cameroon. In the wake of independence in 1960, Cameroon adopted two educational subsystems from its former colonial masters, England and France, who administered the country as a mandated territory and later as a trusted territory after the First and Second World Wars. While the English language was used in the former British territory (current Southwest and Northwest regions), the French language was used in the former French territory (current Adamawa, Centre, East, Far North, Littoral, North, South, and West Regions). This gave birth to an official bilingual situation. It is common knowledge that a language question will arise whenever there is language contact that always requires a solution. The adoption of two foreign languages as official languages was thus a prelude to the problem of bilingual education in Cameroon. To promote bilingualism the authorities adopted a bilingual academic system that brought together both subsystems within the same campus, intending to train young Cameroonians who will be able to produce in both English and French works of art or science of the highest class. The present article aims to find out why sixty-one years after the creation of these bilingual schools in 1963 and 1965, and subsequent ones, Cameroonians are not able to produce in both official languages works of arts and science with consummate skills. The reasons for this failure lay in the methodology adopted in the teaching of languages and the different curricula that need a thorough revision.
Official Bilingualism in Cameroon: An Endangered Policy? NGUH NWEI ASANGA FON
African Studies Quarterly, 2019
At the dawn of independence and reunification in 1961, Cameroon opted for a bilingual republic with English and French as its two official languages. "Official bilingualism"-which for a long time became a source of pride and distinguished Cameroon in the international community has been eroded in recent years by a number of factors militating for its demise: controversy over its meaning; challenges in its application; challenges in the safeguard of the English-subsystem of education and law; among others. Can bilingualism survive in Cameroon? This paper sets out to examine factors militating against the survival of bilingualism in Cameroon and factors supporting its continued existence. The analysis is predicated on the hypothesis that though facing significant challenges, bilingualism still stands a good chance to survive in Cameroon. The paper begins with a succinct definition of what is meant by bilingualism in Cameroon and concludes with some proposals on how to better improve on its implementation. The collapse of bilingualism might trigger further political instability in the country as it may be used as leverage for secession, especially with the Anglophone minority which has for long lamented their marginalization. At the international level, such an occurrence (secession) may inspire a similar pursuit to linguistic or ethnic minorities in the Africa and beyond.
CAMEROON'S ANGLOPHONE CRISIS: ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL, SOCIO-CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT
STUDIA EUROPAEA, 2019
The article aims to analyse the present Anglophone conflict in Cameroon as a consequence of a perpetual political crisis, which has its roots in the colonial administration of the territory. Moreover, the Anglophone crisis is presented as a situation of a minority's marginalization and discrimination, highlighting the socalled francophonisation of the Anglophone system and the issue of the state's mismanagement of cultural diversity. Another interpretation tacked by the article is that the current crisis represents the direct consequence of the authoritarian style of leadership and of the dysfunctional democracy in the country. There are also illustrated the myriad of negative political, social and economic consequences of the crisis, by presenting the relation between the threatened political and economic stability of the country and the increased state authority and violence.