101 of parents. Parent interviews conducted as part of this study and described in chapter six
indicate a certain interest in use of the mother tongue in early primary school, primarily because of its ability to facilitate learning. The maintenance of local language and culture
through the education system is not a strong concern for these parents, but school performance is. They continue to be concerned that their children gain some level of access to
the tools of the modern world - i.e. English fluency and literacy. And although local language education still has its opponents among parents and community members, it is
gaining acceptance among them as well. The history of language and education in the Northwest Province has not been simply
a matter of action by the authorities and acceptance by the local population. Far from being the hapless objects of education policy, Cameroonian communities have acted for their own
best interests as they saw them - often flying in the face of the authorities best judgement to do so. The Cameroonian people bear a significant part of the responsibility for the current
education system, including the languages used there; and if the systems defects in terms of effective learning are now becoming obvious to users and to the national leadership, it should
be expected that those same communities will necessarily take an active part in any change that comes about.
3.2. Language development activity in Nso, Kom and Bafut
The history of language and education in northern Cameroons Province, later named the Northwest Province of Cameroon, provides a global context for the current attitudes and
policies regarding use of local languages in education.
87
To provide further context for this study, the following section explores the course of local language development in the Nso,
Kom and Bafut language communities specifically
3.2.1. History and description of PROPELCA
As noted above section 3.1.5.2, the PROPELCA mother-tongue education programme originated in 1981, jointly supported by the University of Yaoundés
Departement de Langues Africaines et Linguistique DLAL, the Ministry of National Education MINEDUC, the National Education Centre CNE, the Centre for
Anthropological Research and Studies CREA, and the Societé Internationale de
87
Map 3, Appendix 17 is a political map of Northwest Cameroon. Map 4, Appendix 17 shows the chiefdoms of the Province.
102 Linguistique Summer Institute of Linguistics, SIL. PROPELCAs goal was the development
of local Cameroonian languages for education. SIL was the only international NGO involved in PROPELCA at this point; SIL personnel had been active in local language development
and literacy in Cameroon since 1969 Trudell 2001:19 and readily supported this ambitious initiative. However Prof. Maurice Tadadjeu, PROPELCAs principal architect in the DLAL,
has pointed out that from first to last PROPELCA has been a Cameroonian-led programme:
PROPELCA has never been an SIL programme. From the beginning it was our conception at the University, and we took advantage of the fact that SIL was there
with a lot of experience. But when they came [to the discussion] we were already discussing PROPELCA OI: Tadadjeu 4 Oct 2002.
88
Tadadjeus proposed programme for mother-tongue education was received with interest by SIL personnel involved at the University, and the resulting cooperation between
Tadadjeu, SIL education experts and funders such as CIDA set PROPELCA on its way
89
. The PROPELCA programme initiative began in 1979 with a nationwide move to
harmonise the writing systems for Cameroonian languages, resulting in a standard Cameroonian language alphabet Tadadjeu and Sadembuo 1979; Tadadjeu, Gfeller and Mba
1991:29. This was a positive step in the development of writing in the local Cameroonian languages Tabi-Manga 2000:88, in very few of which writing had been yet attempted. For
languages in which people were already writing, such as Lamnso, the effects of standardising the orthography were significant. As Christopher Mengjo, Nso author and editor, has pointed
out:
There was early writing and publishing in Lamnso, but the problem was nonstandard writing. The English orthography was used as a basis, but people
couldnt read others writing. A standardised orthography was agreed on, so that now if I write you will still read it, and if you write I will still read it OI: Mengjo
27 March 2003.
90
88
This quote by Prof. Tadadjeu, and other individual quotes in this chapter, come from interview data collected in the course of this study. The reference OI here refers to an oral interview. An index of interviewees quoted
in this chapter may be found in Appendix 11.
89
Although SIL is an international NGO, its various country offices operate with a great deal of autonomy. The decision of SILs Cameroon branch to support PROPELCA was taken locally, and supported by the international
headquarters as well. It is significant that, at the time Tadadjeu proposed PROPELCA, the SIL Cameroon branch included at least one education consultant with experience in the large bilingual education programme
which SIL and the Peruvian Ministry of Education were running in Peruvian Amazon region Trudell 1993:19. This connection had an impact on the choice of reading method and materials used in PROPELCA up until
today.
90
Where oral quotations from interviews are used in this study, they are transcribed in as faithful a manner as is possible without being incomprehensible to a native speaker of British or American English. Many of the
interviews quoted took place in a Cameroonian variety of English, influenced to varying extents by Pidgin. In the recognition that Cameroonian English is a legitimate language variety, but more important, in the effort to
103 As the PROPELCA programme expands across Cameroon, one of its highest priorities
continues to be the development of alphabets in previously unwritten languages Wiesemann, Sadembuo and Tadadjeu 1988.
91
The next step in implementing PROPELCA was preparation of pedagogical materials in the Cameroonian languages to be used for instruction. This was one area in which SIL was
well prepared to assist. Sarah Gudschinsky, an SIL linguist, had developed a reading method which has for several decades been the standard for SIL-related literacy programmes around
the world.
92
The method prioritises development of the psycholinguistic reading skills, such as analysis of words into syllables and letters, morpheme recognition, the recognition of each
letter value in every syllable position where it is found, and so on Lee 1984. Using this reading method, University of Yaoundé and SIL personnel collaborated with native speakers
of the various languages to prepare pre-reading material, primers, advanced readers, transition materials to reading in the official language and mathematics texts in each language
where PROPELCA was to be implemented Tadadjeu, Gfeller and Mba 1986:5. Teacher training was also a key element in PROPELCA, as it is today section 6.1.3,
Figure 6.10. Teachers had to be taught to read and write the mother tongue themselves. In addition, the methods used for reading instruction in PROPELCA differed from those of the
traditional literacy instruction; thus correct teaching of the series of pre-primer, primers, post- primers and mathematics books required special instruction.
93
PROPELCA classes began in experimental form in 1981, in the Lamnso’ and Ewondo languages, and in 1982 expanded to the Duala and Feefee languages Tadadjeu, Gfeller and
Mba 1991:29.
94
By 1986, eleven Protestant and Catholic schools were using the PROPELCA programme Tabi-Manga 2000:90. The PROPELCA programme has since
convey as much of the original context as possible, I have not regularised the quotations to a more standard English variety.
91
Seventy seven Cameroonian languages have language committees registered with NACALCO; it is probable that the approximately 200 language communities without committees speak unwritten languages.
92
In the last 10-15 years, however, reading methodology in SIL - and in PROPELCA - has evolved beyond the purely psycholinguistic approach to reading. Current primers and literacy programmes are likely to include more
attention to global aspects of reading, as well as aspects of ActionAids Reflect method Trudell 2001:57.
93
This element of sustained, programmed teacher training distinguishes PROPELCA from many mother-tongue initiatives in Africa. As Musau notes 2003:159, teacher training is often not a part of programmes to introduce
the mother tongue into the primary classrooms, including the programmes Musau describes in Kenya. This aspect of PROPELCA has, I believe, a great deal to do with its ongoing implementation.
94
PROPELCA programmes have been implemented in both francophone and anglophone Cameroon ever since PROPELCAs inception; three of the four pilot languages - Ewondo, Duala and Feefee - are in French-speaking
Cameroon.
104 grown to be implemented in at least 29 Cameroonian languages, including Bafut and Kom in
addition to Lamnso’. As of 2001, nearly 25,000 students were participating Appendix 13. The programme includes mother-tongue materials for use in the classroom, teacher training
and supervision, and advocacy work in the local community on behalf of the use of the mother tongue in schools.
Two types of classroom-level implementation have been established. These are called the formal PROPELCA programme, implemented in grades 1-4, in which the mother tongue
is used as a medium of instruction alongside English or French; and the informal PROPELCA programme, used for grades 5-7, in which reading and writing the mother
tongue are taught as a subject among other subjects in the curriculum.
95
The formal PROPELCA programme is based on the national curriculum and syllabus, but the local language is included as a medium of instruction alongside English or French.
Reading and writing are taught in the mother tongue, using PROPELCA mother-tongue primers and readers. Arithmetic is also taught primarily in the mother tongue, and arithmetic
books for grades one and two are part of the PROPELCA text series. The one major modification to the national syllabus is that English or French is programmatically taught as
a second language, beginning orally in grade one. From grades one to four, the relative amount of time spent teaching in the mother tongue decreases, and that in spent teaching in
the official language English in Northwest Province increases. The proportion of time which PROPELCA teachers are supposed to be teaching in the two languages year by year is
shown in Figure 3.2.
Figure 3. 2. Recommended percentages of time of use of mother tongue and official language in formal PROPELCA, grades 1-4
taken from PROPELCA 1995:7
Grade Mother tongue
Official language
1 75 25
2 60 40
3 40 60
4 15 85
95
These uses of formal and informal to describe the two types of PROPELCA programme follow the terminology coined by PROPELCAs founders in the University of Yaoundé.
105 This proportion is rough at best; other than the subjects of reading and writing and
arithmetic in the mother tongue, I could find no consistent allocation of subjects to a particular language medium of instruction.
96
Rather, PROPELCA teachers are trained to estimate how much time is being spent using the two languages respectively and to aim for
the percentages above - not by subject, but in terms of total teaching time. This programmed, intentional coexistence of the two languages in the classrooms in grades 1-4 is one of the
most significant learning advantages of PROPELCA.
The informal PROPELCA programme is implemented in grades 5-7, and involves inserting an extra time period one to three times a week into the timetable, in order to teach
mother-tongue reading and writing. It is not expected that the informal programme necessarily follows the formal programme; rather, the former is intended simply to teach
children in grade 5-7 to read and write in their mother tongue. The informal programme uses the same primers as formal PROPELCA does for mother-tongue literacy. Informal
PROPELCA is easier to staff and run than formal PROPELCA, and it is used in some cases e.g. Bafut, see below to build interest and support for the formal PROPELCA programme.
A total of nearly 16,000 primary students in the Northwest Province participated in formal or informal PROPELCA classes in 2001, and a total of 33,000 students in the entire country.
Appendix 13 lists the national distribution of PROPELCA schools and students in 2001. The decision to implement PROPELCA in any given school is that of the school
headmaster, who may be influenced in this decision by the interests of his teachers or the school manager. The PROPELCA class is not usually the only educational option open to a
given child, as primary schools are more and more numerous, even in the rural areas of the Province. A parents decision about where to send his or her child to school depends on
factors such as the schools proximity, religious affiliation, reputation and expense, and so the parents interest or lack thereof in PROPELCA is often one additional factor in making that
decision. Parents perspectives on PROPELCA are described in more detail in Section 6.1.2.
3.2.2. Institutional framework of PROPELCA
