Cameroon Unemployed Youths Seeking for Work in Hundreds of Thousands

Yaounde, Cameroon Africa( Cameroon News) – Mr Youssouf Hadidja Alim, Minister of Basic Education, in a press release on July 16, consequent to an audit of 2010 on contract teachers, has exposed the fact that 20 per cent of them have been absenting from work.

This exercise was carried out at the behest of partners like the French Development Agency and the World Bank to enforce measures to eliminate this malpractice among contract teachers.

According to the Ministry of Basic Education, it was imperative to catalog the details of death, resignation, unpaid wages, irregularities at work, abseentism, as it was found to be crucial for programme appraisal.

However, there is discontent among some contract teachers with regard to the timing of the exercise. This discontent brews from the fact that many have been recalled, a month ahead of the vacations getting over, to report at their work stations, which they believe could well have been done after school reopening.

A contract teacher in Yaounde told “Cameroon Tribune” that some of her colleagues have expressed their inability to attend, the reasons cited being non receipt of salaries after recruitment, and the large distances separating their holiday locations from their work spots.
Rosine Mamo Konla , also from Yaounde, another participant in the exercise in Ntui ,in the Centre Region today, expressed her sympathises with those who have to travel with families to other Regions,as they have to seek additional financial resources to plan for their return.

That it is impossible for some of them to take part in the exercise is explained by Edith Y . “It is not possible to leave Bamenda now and go to the Mayo Tsanaga Division in the Far North Region where I teach before finally going to resume work for the 2011/12012 academic year,” adding that the trip is likely to cost her some FCFA 70,000.

Others have summed up the exercise as important to teachers and for the government, ensuring efficiency in the system. The dispute with the administration however, seems mainly to center around the timing of the whole exercise. Despite the discontentment, a few contract teachers could be spotted for the exercise,at the Mfoundi Divisional Delegation for Basic Education in the Centre Region yesterday August 1,Gabriel Ntsoli Moudio ,the Divisional Delegate was positive but apprehensive. The exercise, according to him, that began on July 21 and ends August 20, is intended at depicting a balance sheet of a programme that commenced some five years ago and would be over by December 2011.

According to him, the timing is in relation to the effectiveness of the teaching exercise, and believes the scheme will enable maintaining a better record of the contract teachers. “We realised that in order not to interrupt classes, it was better to carry out the census when pupils are on holidays,” he explained.