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
In addition to its interest for local individual and institutional stakeholders, the primary classroom is a focus of interest for a handful of institutions which operate locally but
whose agenda and identity are set outside the local community. The most important of these for this study is the Ministry of National Education; others include denominational education
authorities, NACALCO and SIL International. 6.3.1. The Ministry of National Education
The interests of the African state in its national educational system encompass a wide variety of social, economic and political agendas. Formal education is the states vehicle for
modernisation, for building national identity and for building a work force able to participate in the economic and social development of the country. The government of Cameroon has
built just such goals into the crafting of its national education system Dioh 1991:22.
Official curriculum and actual curriculum. In his study of the modern state and schooling in the developing world, Bruce Fuller 1991 argues that the fragility of the modern
Third World state compels it to advance its own legitimacy through the education system. Fuller notes that, while overly aggressive pursuit of liberal ideals and mass schooling can
strain a states credibility with the conservative political forces within it, the modern state that wishes to survive still must be seen to advocate Western-style education:
In order to look modern and to signal mass opportunity the Third World state must express faith in, and materially expand, schooling. Thus most fragile states pursue
a rather rocky romance with the school Fuller 1991:3.
At the same time that it strives to institute mass schooling, the state must also attempt to deepen the impact of the school on its students, that is, to reshape the consciousness and
social rules that children come to abide by p.5.
231 In its struggle to gain legitimacy, the fragile state is forced into interdependency with
other institutions, including the local and traditional societies within the borders of the state. Fuller argues that many of these societies in Third World nations are stronger than the state,
and so the state cannot afford to alienate them entirely in its drive for modernisation. Thus the state works with local leadership, particularly the local elite, depending on them to legitimise
mass schooling and so permit the state to claim its provision of mass opportunity. As a result, the central state imposes a structure that appears to be uniform and
strictly regulated Fuller p.21, emphasis in the original, with a national curriculum and standardised examinations. Yet the tight administrative control that theoretically characterises
such a regulated education system is rarely realised, and scope exists for local agency. In such a centralised education system, then, space still remains for the priorities of local
institutions and local elites. The evidence of this study is that the Cameroonian state, faced with an immense
diversity of cultures, languages and educational expectations, can be characterised as described above. The Law of Education in Cameroon Ministry of National Education 1998
drives uncompromisingly towards universal, compulsory primary education; it promises education that is secular and apolitical; it advocates democratic ideals and loyalty to the
nation as against tribalism and regionalism Dioh 1991:22. However, even at the level of the national curriculum, the ideal of a unitary national education breaks down: faced with
strong regional opposition to a single curriculum, the Ministry of National Education has recently promulgated one syllabus for English speaking Cameroon and another for
French-speaking Cameroon Ministry of National Education 2000; OI: Tumenta 17 Feb 03.
Curriculum flexibility is further exploited by the denominational education authorities. The Education Secretary for each denomination draws up a scheme of work for
application by the schools under his authority, based on the government-formulated syllabus but including other topics which express the interests of the denominational authorities, and
altering the timetable to suit the modified syllabus. Given the large percentage of Christian schools in the education system of Northwest Cameroon, it is clear that the sanctioned body
of knowledge that many school children acquire has been shaped by denominational education authorities as well as the government.
More locally, the interests of the Ministry of National Education are represented by provincial and divisional delegates for education, whose role is to oversee the implementation
of national educational objectives. Inspectors for nursery and primary schools are assigned to
232 each division and sub-division, with administrative authority over all the government schools
in their region and pedagogical authority over the mission schools as well OI: Tumenta 17 Feb 03, including administration of the standardised first school-leaving certificate
examination FSLC given at the end of primary school. These representatives of the central education authority have significant influence over pedagogical and administrative aspects of
schools in their region of responsibility OI: Chah 14 March 03. Even so, at the level of the local school further evidence of the flexibility of the
national curriculum may be found in the expectation that the national syllabuses are to be individually interpreted by the classroom teacher. Amina Tumenta, inspector of primary
education for Mezam Division Bamenda explained this expectation:
These syllabuses have gone out to the schools. It is now the schools responsibility to look at the particular content; the teacher will have to write his own lessons.
When the new syllabuses came out, the inspector had a seminar for head teachers on drawing up schemes [of work] and supervising teachers to make their lesson
plans OI: Tumenta 17 Feb 03.
Thus, the classroom teacher - with help from the headmaster - is responsible for interpreting and operationalising the national curriculum. Given the wide variation in
qualifications among the teaching force in the Bafut, Kom and Nso homelands, the actual lesson content students receive will inevitably be adapted to the understandings and priorities
of the local school staff, and may well not be entirely consonant with the official curriculum. Hawes 1979 addresses this issue in his discussion of official curriculum and actual
curriculum in African schools. The actual curriculum consists of the learning planned by local school staff, and may differ significantly from the official curriculum handed down by
the national education authority.
Plans and purposes of schools and teachers may differ from those of ministries and the experts they employ - and may indeed be more realistic Hawes 1979:110.
Hawes notes that actual curriculum typically differs from official curriculum particularly in the areas of time allocation, language of instruction, greater emphasis on basic skills, and
preparation for examinations.
224
Another especially visible area of curricular modification in the Bafut, Kom and Nso homelands is the practise of requiring manual labour of primary students during the school
day. Not only are the children expected to keep the school grounds clean, but each class also
224
Hawes also distinguishes between actual curriculum and actual practice, the latter being the intended or unintended outcomes of schooling 1979:110.
233 regularly works the fields belonging to school staff. I observed this phenomenon many times
in the schools visited. This kind of activity is completely absent from the official syllabus, and in some cases represents an abuse of authority; still, it is extremely common. One Nso
man gave an account of his experience in a rural school in Banso:
From the time we were at primary until now, all the produce from the school farmgarden goes to the headmaster and the teachers. Even the students who work
[for] these food items will hardly have any share. . . . To me, this is child labour in disguise. . . . Even in secondary school, we worked in the school farm for marks
assessment and knew not where the food goes to Barah, 9 May 03.
It is unclear what if any marks were given for labour of this sort, since there is no such subject in the curriculum. Another Nso man living in Bamenda concurred on the
exploitative nature of the manual labour of the students in the rural schools:
Nowadays, most of the farms are personally owned by the teachers themselves, though children are sent to work on those farms. There is the pretext that some of
them are owned by the school but what is got there is shared between the headmaster or manager and the rest of the teachers. The children dont know what
is done with what is got from there Nga Bami 5 May 03.
This practice is widespread, and parents are certainly aware of what is happening. However, Nga Bami notes that it occurs primarily in the village schools:
In most schools in towns like Bamenda, most time is spent now in learning in classrooms rather than working on those farms. This has greatly increased the rate
of learning in town schools [compared to] most village schools. . . . Most people who pay high fees for their children may not want their children to do any work
for people Nga Bami 5 May 03.
It is possible that parents in the homeland accept this farm work because they consider that it provides the child with training which is highly relevant to the homeland family and
community. In any case, the actual curriculum in the homeland primary schools includes significant allocation of time to this manual work.
Local language use in the curriculum. This purposeful modification of the official curriculum is the context in which space may be found for adding mother-tongue literacy to
the local school timetable. The new national education policy includes promotion of national [Cameroonian] languages in its list of objectives Ministry of National Education 1998, and
yet the current national syllabuses despite having been formulated after the 1998 law on education make no mention of languages other than English and French. The new syllabus
does include an allotment of 90 minutes per week to the subject of national cultures,
234 consisting of music, arts and crafts, drawing and drama. However no language element is
mentioned.
225
So PROPELCA teachers are trained to modify the syllabus they are given in the areas of language instruction and literacy, deducting so much time from other subjects and creating
lesson plans that cover PROPELCA objectives as well as the official curriculum objectives OI: Wirngo 27 July 03; OI: Ambe 4 July 03; GIS 8 Feb 03. This requires the approval of the
school headmaster or headmistress as well, who must be sufficiently convinced of the value of the PROPELCA programme to participate in its implementation. Hon. Waingeh, the
KLDC chairman and himself a secondary school headmaster, described the informality of the process of incorporating mother-tongue classes into the local curriculum:
You wont find national [Cameroonian] language mentioned in the national syllabuses for either primary or secondary schools, but they fit the classes in here
and there. The timetable can have national languages in it at the local school level - it just depends on who is interested when the timetable is made up. If there
is no champion for national language, they dont get included OI: Waingeh 14 March 03.
It is significant that the presence of advocates at the school level most likely teachers has such an influence on whether the PROPELCA programme will be run in a
given school. The local PROPELCA programme has over the years been carried out in a vague
educational policy environment, allowing the priorities and interests of local actors teachers, headmasters, inspectors, school managers and even the denominational education secretaries
a strong degree of influence over whether the programme is accepted in schools or not. However with the inclusion of promotion of national languages as an educational objective
in the Law on Education of 1998,
226
the language committees see a new window of opportunity opening for the expansion of PROPELCA, particularly into government schools.
The central education authority is now understood to be in favour of using local languages in primary school, and all the government education authorities from provincial delegates to
sub-divisional inspectors are now counted as potential allies in the struggle to expand the PROPELCA programme. Patrick Meliim, an NLO literacy supervisor, described the
225
This ambivalence on the part of national education policy - to promote local languages in school and yet not give them space in the national syllabus - appears to be a cautious response to a changing international and local
environment regarding language. Such caution seems to have characterised national language policy ever since independence. See section 7.4.2 for further discussion.
226
1998 This inclusion is itself largely the result of persistent lobbying by NACALCO personnel over the past decade; see Albaugh 2003.
235 difference official approval has made, particularly on the participation of government school
personnel:
The delegate of education sent a paper around to inspectors to give authority to headmasters to accept PROPELCA. . . .We now go through inspectors and
delegates [to acquire teachers for PROPELCA] since three years ago OI: Meliim 5 Jan 03.
John Ambe, BALA literacy supervisor, noted the power of the new pro-local language environment to open doors for the PROPELCA programme:
Government teachers know it [the new law on national languages], it is a thing they have to do. The inspectorate has recognised it; the government too has
recognised it. They do not anymore try to shut the doors to the schools, saying, But why do you bring such a thing in here? OI: Ambe 3 Feb 03
Compliance with the new law is not yet compulsory, and so is not universal among the local education authorities, as the text of application which specifies how the law will be
applied had not been written as of mid-2003 OI: Lawyer 19 March 03; OI: Suuyren 2 March 03. However, a number of local education authorities in the Bafut, Kom and Nso homelands
are anticipating application of the law and expressing their support for the PROPELCA programme OI: Banboyee 4 Jan 03.
Ministry of National Education: summary. Like other nations in the developing world, the Cameroonian state depends on its education system to help achieve national goals.
However, the balance of power between the state and its constituents and the realities of local interests necessitate an interdependence in which the Cameroonian government sets a highly
structured national syllabus but allows significant flexibility in its local application. In its policy regarding language in education, the Cameroonian government balances
an awareness of the plethora of local languages and cultures with its commitments to official bilingualism in English and French. Committed to a national education policy that prioritises
English and French competency as a factor of national unity and integration Ministry of National Education 1998, Cameroonian education authorities have not until recently
demonstrated overt support for the use of local languages in primary schools. However PROPELCA has been permitted to operate as an experimental programme since 1979, and
has expanded into eight of the ten provinces of the nation
227
. The programme and its
227
The Centre, East, North, Far North, Littoral, West, Northwest and Southwest Provinces NACALCO 2001. See Appendix 10 for a listing of the locations and attendance figures of PROPELCA classes in the country.
236 outcomes have also been noted by educational authorities over this time OI Waingeh 14
March 03; OI: Chah 14 March 03. The positive light in which mother-tongue education is now seen by the Ministry of
National Education is largely the payoff of two key strategies of the PROPELCA programme: to minimise any threat the programme might pose to the local or national
education system and to prioritise low-key persuasion and local cooperation. From its beginning, PROPELCA was not set up as an alternative to the national curriculum OI: Mba
11 Oct 02. Rather, it was intended to increase the success of primary school children in achieving national curriculum objectives. That it does so is increasingly common knowledge
in the Bafut, Kom and Nso language communities section 6.1.1. At local levels, the cooperation of educators and education authorities in PROPELCA has been sought
continuously. These political choices on the part of NACALCO and the language committees have been crucial to the present national climate of official support for mother-tongue
primary education. 6.3.2. Denominational education authorities
The Presbyterian, Baptist and Catholic denominations in Northwest Cameroon share a historical and ideological commitment to formal education. As discussed in chapter four,
the so-called mission schools provided the great majority of educational opportunities in the region until well after 1960.
Today, however, the denominational education systems feel themselves under severe pressure from the government. They believe that the post-independence national government
has been using education to increase its community influence at the expense of the church denominations, by opening schools in competition with denominational schools, reducing the
grants-in-aid and subsidies allowed to denominational schools and forcing them to charge much higher fees than the government schools OI: Eben 10 Feb 03.
228
Yet the denominational authorities believe that their education systems continue to play a crucial role in the socialisation of Cameroonian children. The Cameroonian Baptist
Convention CBC considers that the church is societys conscience Ngarka n.d.; its goals for Baptist schools are that they teach good doctrine and good behaviour, set good examples
for the children to follow and teach the fear of God. The Catholic Church describes its responsibility in even stronger terms. The provision of education is considered a divine
228
Figure 6.2 clearly shows the difference in fee structures of the denominational and government schools.
237 mandate: the church understands her participation in the process of education as forming
part of her saving mission Tanda 1991:95. The Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, taking over the Basel Mission schools in 1966, did so because it was convinced of the importance
of the Churchs participation in this aspect of national development Ekiti 1982:77. The commitment of these denominations to educational provision is thus not a matter to be taken
lightly. Education is not a casual social service to be abandoned when no longer convenient; it is seen as a part of the spiritual service which the church has been rendering to the nation
and to its people for over 100 years. However, the denominational education system as a whole is not deeply concerned
with language issues. Heavily engaged with the government over survival issues such as subsidies, local competition and the laws governing private education, Christian education
authorities express little interest in debating questions of language choice in the classroom OI: Eben 10 Feb 03; OI: Banboyee 4 Jan 03. Thus, the question of language choice for the
classroom is not debated at this level; rather, it is left for the local churches and schools to deal with.
6.3.3. NACALCO and SIL International NACALCO and SIL are both language-development NGOs, and as such they share
many goals in common. However, as institutions they are differ significantly. NACALCO is a Cameroonian NGO, led by academic personnel of the University of Yaoundés Department
of African Languages and Linguistics, and dedicated to the support and representation of Cameroonian language committees. SIL is an international NGO, staffed largely by non-
Cameroonians, whose focus encompasses both translation of the Bible and the more secular aspects of minority language development, linguistic research and local-language literacy.
Yet the two organisations are similar in two important ways: they are closely allied in their desire to see Cameroons minority languages developed and recognised as viable means
of learning and communication; and neither institution is represented directly as an actor in the formal education system. Their positions as stakeholders in the primary school classroom
once removed are thus similar, and for that reason these two national-level institutions are treated together here.
The philosophical orientation expressed by NACALCOs leaders is one of strong critique of the post-colonial education system in Africa. Prof. Maurice Tadadjeu, the founder
and director of NACALCO and the original architect of PROPELCA section 3.2.1, described NACALCOs perspective this way:
238
Basic education in Cameroon has been for all these years a systematic process of alienation. The fact that the child goes to school and has to learn in a different
language, including the day-to-day things that he is playing with and using - nobody has measured the psychological damage of this system through which we
have come OI: Tadadjeu 4 Oct 02.
Recognising the governments recent efforts to reduce the degree of cultural alienation in the Cameroonian curriculum, Tadadjeu nevertheless maintains that there is still too much
curriculum content from outside:
We are borrowing a world view, a model of what is perceived as the best of the world, and trying to impose it in a society that has been declared primitive and
having nothing to offer the world OI: Tadadjeu 4 Oct 02.
However, Tadadjeus analysis of the effects of colonial and neocolonial education systems is not limited to Cameroon, but encompasses the possibilities for African
development which comes from within the continent, not outside of it Tadadjeu 1997:4. His vision for Africa in the 21
st
century is built on the principles of panafricanism, democratisation and the valuing and modernising [of] geopolitical legacies Tadadjeu
1997:11 - including African languages. On this philosophical basis, NACALCO personnel want to see a greater affirmation of
local values and knowledge in the local primary classroom, and the establishment of a connection between a childs world at school and his or her place in the local community.
This, they believe, may best be achieved through use of the local language - along with the colonial language - as medium of instruction. NACALCOs leaders do not by any means deny
the critical importance of English or French to the educational enterprise, but they emphasise the necessity of a pedagogical and cultural grounding in the mother tongue as a prerequisite
to successful learning. It is from this perspective that NACALCO facilitates the language development activities of language committees across Cameroon section 3.2.2
SILs philosophical approach is rather different. As an organisation which focuses on the application of linguistics to literacy, education, community development, cultural identity
and spiritual formation, SILs approach tends towards the technical rather than the ideological. This may seem surprising, given the decidedly Christian orientation of SIL
personnel, but the organisations self-identification is that of technical expertise rather than mission-like proselytising or liberationist critique of post-colonial systems.
SIL personnel tend to see any use of the written mother tongue as a positive step towards establishing the viability of local languages. Thus SILs goal for the local primary
classroom consists of the students attaining a high degree of literacy skills in the mother
239 tongue by the time they leave school. As many SIL personnel are educators by profession,
they also exhibit an instinctive rejection of any classroom experience that leaves the child more confused than enlightened. The use of local languages in the classroom is seen as
beneficial in that it optimises the learning experience. NACALCO and SIL are allied principally in their support for the local language
committees. Both organisations provide financial support to the language committees, SILs contributions for this purpose being generally channelled through NACALCO. Both
organisations also provide linguistic and pedagogical consultant help, although SILs role in this area has decreased in recent years. Both operate print shops as well, in which materials
prepared by the language committees may be produced.
229
As neither of these institutions has direct involvement in the primary school classroom, their educational goals are represented and broadened by the language
committees input into the local school. However direct evidence of NACALCOs influence may be seen in the PROPELCA teacher training content, and in the skills of language
committee personnel who have benefited from NACALCO-sponsored training. Evidence of SILs input may be seen in the linguistic approach taken to formulation of the alphabets and
the teaching of reading. Both NACALCO and SIL authors feature in the PROPELCA textbooks and training aids.
6.4. Stakeholder interests in English-language and mother-tongue education
