225 across stakeholder groups and across language communities as well. Together they provided
a detailed picture of the nature and interests of individual community-level stakeholders. Threaded through each set of stakeholder concerns is the constant presence and
influence of the English language. As both the goal and the medium of primary school instruction, English defines the aspiration of students, the measure of success for parents and
the power base of the teacher. Another theme of these stakeholders concerns is the purpose of primary school.
Family hopes notwithstanding, its role in preparing students for further formal education is recognised to be limited, as the national primary-to-secondary school transition ratio of 23
indicates. However, its role in producing good citizens of the local community is valued as highly as any other preparatory function it has.
6.2. Language choice in the primary classroom: local institutional stakeholders
Local institutions as well as individuals are stakeholders in the primary school classroom. Two of these, the traditional community authorities and the language committee,
were discussed extensively in chapter four. The authority of traditional leaders is reinforced and expressed through the local language, and their desire to see cultural traditions passed on
and legitimised to succeeding generations leads to their support for use of the local language in school. The language committee expresses its own educational agenda very clearly in its
implementation of the PROPELCA programme. As is discussed in section 4.6, the language committees programme for primary classrooms is based on both cultural and pedagogical
convictions about the necessity of using the written mother tongue in school. Two other local institutions have a stake in the content of the primary classroom: the
local church sponsor of a school, and the Parent Teacher Association PTA. These are examined below.
6.2.1. The local church sponsor The principal Christian school systems in Northwest Cameroon - Catholic,
Presbyterian and Baptist - have their origin in the Christian missions which established both churches and schools across the region from the early 1900s discussed in chapter three.
Upon the replacement of the foreign-based missions by Cameroonian denominational hierarchies, the denominational school system continued to operate as a service offered by the
churches to the communities and a means of gaining church members. With the growth of the government school system, denominational schools dominate the education system less
226 than they did in the early years of national independence; still, according to Amin 1999:123,
as of 1996 more than 41 of schools in Northwest Province were private mission schools
219
. In the present study, both government and Christian schools were common throughout the
homelands.
220
Parents and teachers alike considered the two kinds of school to be comparable in terms of the academic education they offer.
The principal structural difference between the denominational school and the government school is that the former is financially and administratively linked to a local
church congregation. This linkage takes such forms as annual church budgets to maintain the school and pay the teachers, and participation by the church leadership in the religious
education offered in the school. Mathew Mbolifor, assistant headmaster at P.S. Manji, Bafut, described the church-mission school relationship as familial:
The congregation is the mother of the school OI: Mbolifor 25 Feb 03.
This same sentiment was echoed in other denominational schools as well. The language policy of denominational schools has been somewhat influenced by the
early missions conviction that religious conversion and instruction take place most effectively in the local language, not the colonial language sections 3.1.2.2 and 3.1.3.1.
Current interest in local languages on the part of Baptist, Presbyterian and Catholic churches is related to the oral use of local languages in the church services and the availability of the
Scriptures and other written materials in Bafut, Kom and Lamnso OI: Suuyren 2 March 03. This sympathetic orientation towards local languages led Catholic education authorities to
adopt the experimental PROPELCA in Lamnso and Ewondo in 1981 section 3.2.1. At the local level, denominational school authorities vary in their support for
PROPELCA. While in Kom the denominational leaders have maintained support for PROPELCA programmes in their schools, in Nso the mother-tongue programme was nearly
destroyed in the mid-1990s by the sudden withdrawal of financial support of the Catholic diocesan authorities. In Bafut the language committee is actively cultivating church leaders
for their support of BALAs mother-tongue initiatives. The highest priorities of churches who sponsor schools revolve around religious
formation and maintenance of church membership. Language choice is thus viewed more
219
As has been mentioned above, very few private non-mission schools operate in the Northwest Province OI: Eben 10 Feb 03.
220
However, not all denominations were equally represented in the three language communities. The Catholics had stronger representation in Banso and Kom, the Presbyterians in Bafut, and the Baptists in Kom.
227 pragmatically than ideologically: where the local language is necessary for religious
formation, it is employed OI: Mbolifor 25 Feb 03. One PROPELCA teacher demonstrated the utility of using the childrens mother tongue in teaching difficult concepts in the religion
curriculum:
Class 2, religious instruction The class begins with an English song sung in unison: Galilee, sweet Galilee,
Master Jesus Christ changed water into wine. Then follows a lecture about the miracle at Cana, and then a series of questions from the teacher.
Teacher in English: Who begged Jesus to change the water into wine? Class: Maria.
Teacher: Where did it take place? No answers.
Teacher in Kom mixed with English: What did Jesus say? Many volunteers, and the answers are in Kom.
Several times the teacher asks questions in English and is answered in Kom by students. The teacher does not reprimand them for this, but moves easily between
Kom and English. The students know miracle in Kom but not in English.
Teacher in English: Who do you take your problems to? Blank faces, no answers.
Teacher repeats the question in Kom, and ten hands go up. Teacher often interjects in English, Is that clear? The answer from the class is
always
Yeeesss. CO: CS Balikumato grade 2, 20 Feb 03
In this Catholic doctrine class, only the easiest questions could be responded to in English. It is probably safe to say that any actual content learning that took place in this class
was in the Kom language.
221
The local sponsoring church: summary. For the local church sponsoring a primary school, the principal attraction of using the local language is its ability to communicate the
frequently abstract content of religious formation classes. Similarly, the interest of the PROPELCA programme for these church sponsors lies principally in its potential to produce
readers of local-language Scripture, doctrinal materials and other church literature.
221
Slaters study of Ugandan seminary students 2002 notes that adult students who were taught in English classrooms during the day would gather in the evenings and, in the vernacular, discuss what the students
thought they had heard or not heard during the classroom lectures p.271. This informal learning activity figured prominently in the students overall understanding of the material, and use of the local language was a
crucial to the activity.
228 6.2.2. The Parents Teacher Associations PTAs
The PTA is the institutionalised avenue for community involvement in the local school. Every school, whether denominational or government, has its PTA. All school parents
and teachers are expected to participate in this association, interacting primarily with the headmaster on issues related to the schools functioning.
222
In the case of a mission school, the leader of the parent church may also be on the PTA, representing the denominational
owners of the school; this church leader may serve the PTA at times as a technical advisor or mediator between parents and school staff OI: Mbolifor 25 Feb 03.
The tasks of the PTA cover both the physical and the operational aspects of the school. In the parent interview series Appendices 6-8, respondents were asked about the
responsibilities of the PTA in their childrens schools question C.1, Appendix 8. Their responses indicate that the PTA plays an important role in maintaining the school buildings
and furnishings, and in advising and monitoring school staff. Furthermore, many of these parents felt that the PTA was a place where their voices could be heard by the school
personnel questions C.23, Appendix 8. One parent described the collaborative nature of the PTA:
We assist the staff morally and financially. The PTA is very important as the parents assist the staff and vice versa in bringing up the children Nsopar 03.
The PTA does not have a strong decision-making function where the school is concerned, but its advisory capacity is significant.
223
The PTA also sets the schools yearly PTA levy on parents, which is separate from the tuition fee and is used by the PTA for maintaining the school and paying PTA teachers see
below. The PTA is responsible for collecting the levy, and may be called upon to mediate financial interactions between the school and the parent as well. Alfred Yafi, a Kom
headmaster, described how this works:
Those parents who dont want to pay the fee in time, the PTA now can intervene and convince the parent. And they answer [explain], why I do not pay the school
fee for the child. . . . If a parent does not pay, the PTA president may go and see that parent and ask him what is wrong that he has not paid. If there is something
serious wrong that has made him not to pay, then they may decide to keep the child in school so that next year the child may be paid for. OI: Yafi 14 March 03.
222
Of the 48 parents interviewed on the subject question C.4, Appendix 8, all but three stated that they take part in the PTA regularly.
223
However parents indicated that the extent to which they feel heard depends on the extent of the school authorities willingness to engage in an inclusive management style question C.2.
229 Another important function of the PTA is to recruit and hire PTA teachers. When the
sponsoring agency government or denominational lacks the resources to provide a teacher for each of the seven primary grades, the PTA hires additional teachers on a yearly contract
basis and pays them out of PTA levies. In describing this function of the PTA, Linus Chah, the government inspector for primary schools in Njinikom sub-division Kom, explained that
the PTA is in a sort of partnership with the government OI: Chah 14 March 03. The PTA teacher is selected by the PTA executive committee and the headmaster.
PTA salaries are much lower than those of teachers hired by the denomination or the government, and so newly-hired PTA teachers typically are inexperienced or possibly not
even trained as teachers. However, the headmaster often mentors such new teachers until they know what to do in the classroom, as the Kom headmaster explained:
PTA teachers are not trained and sometimes the problem may be that he or she does not know what to do. It is not actually a problem; when I take a PTA teacher
and then he teaches one year, then I dont just leave him to take another [PTA teacher]. Because what the PTA teacher has already acquired in the field now can
help him to do better next year. And if he is not stubborn I will still continue to show him how to teach, sometimes a year or two. Then sometimes you see that
some PTA teachers are even better than the trained teachers, because of their experience OI: Yafi 14 March 03.
Several PTA teachers were found in this study who had been working on that basis for 20 years or more; their long experience made them valued members of the staff.
Regarding the use of the mother tongue in school, the perspective of the PTAs depends on the extent of their knowledge of the PROPELCA programme. The BALA, KLDC
and NLO literacy supervisors make it a priority to gain PTA support for the programme, since such support can influence headmasters to send teachers for PROPELCA training OI:
Yafi 14 March 03; OI: Suuyren 2 March 03. In some areas that support has been gained, as Alfred Yafi, headmaster of a Kom primary school, noted:
The PTA [of C.S. Balikumato] is actually encouraging PROPELCA, because they are seeing that teaching children to understand things in their dialect [language],
when they have not known English, they understand better OI: Yafi 14 March 03.
By the same token, PTA opinion may swayed by teachers who oppose PROPELCA. This happened on one occasion in Bafut, in which significant negotiation with the headmaster
and the school manager was required to override the PTAs objections and implement the programme after all OI: Ambe 3 Feb 03.
230 The PTA: Summary. In the Bafut, Kom and Nso homelands, the PTA is a means of
structuring and mobilising parental interest in the childs education. The PTAs role in the school is seen as supportive, collaborative and advisory. The PTA reflects the concerns and
priorities of the parents involved; to the extent that these include matters of language, the PTA will be influential on the position taken by local school authorities. PTA support for
PROPELCA is not a given, but may be gained if parents can be convinced of the value of mother-tongue education for their children.
6.3. Language choice in the primary classroom: national stakeholders
