By Bakah Derick
Blogger@hilltopvoices
 |
| Rev Fr Evaristus Yufanyi joins his ancestors |
The
Archbishop of Bamenda has officially made public the death of one of his priest
Rev Fr Evaristus Yufanyi. His Grace Cornelius Fontem Esssua made public the
death early this week with an announcement on local radio stations in Bamenda. According
to the announcement, the death occurred Monday August 24th
2015, at the St Elizabeth's Catholic General Hospital, Shisong about 11:00pm. Rev Fr Evaristus prior to his death recently in Kumbo was Catholic Education
Secretary.
Born on the
20th of April, 1949,
in Kedjom Keku, Rev Fr Evaristus Yufanyi was Ordained Priest
of the Catholic Church and of the Archdiocese of Bamenda on the 28th
of April 1977. Being amongst the last seven diocesan priests to be trained in
Bigard Memorial Seminary Enugu Nigeria, Rev Fr Evaristus from what we gathered amongst
others served the Archdiocese of Bamenda and the Diocese of Kumbo as Catholic
Education Secretary and as principal of St Bede’s College Ashin Kum from
2003-2004.
Rev Fr Evaristus Yufanyi as a writer authored many books amongst them Mission schools in present day Cameroon in trouble [sic] waters and A pathfinder to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for Catholic colleges
As soon as we get the funeral program you will
be inform
Here is one
of his many write-ups we selected for you as we all remember him
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
I
have served my Diocese as Catholic Education Secretary for over eighteen years.
During this time I have gone through some moments of joy and most moments of
pain and sadness.
My
first six years were more relaxing and I put most of my energy on improving the
quality of education offered in our schools. My last twelve years have been
full of sadness, for teachers sometimes go for months without a salary or half
salary and yet I had to be on them to do the work. I have also watched with
sadness some of our impoverishing school buildings and a dwindling enrolment in
our primary schools. It has since 1992 been hard to follow and implement any
official school policy because before you are on it, it is no longer a policy.
There are days and weeks when we worked on educational policies and waited for
implementation and nothing was heard any more about them.
From 1994 to about 1997 the Government of Cameroon offered no subvention to our schools. We had audit control from the Supreme State Control Team from Yaounde, and after the control they were satisfied with our accountability and assured us that the debt would be paid from the Highly Indebted Poor Country’s Initiative Fund. The debt stood at about FCFA 800million from 1992 to 2003. Till today nothing has come from it. The schools almost strangulated the Archdiocese but for the patience of teachers for which we remain ever grateful.
The Anglophone diocese accumulated more debts because we have a long tradition of trained teachers with higher salaries and Francophones have but teachers trained on the spot with lower salaries. Yaounde and Douala could manage the situation with a little increase in fees but any increase in fees on our part would have been deceptive and fatal because they would still not have made it. The World Bank project for free primary education had a timeline to be extended to Mission Schools, instead Government came up with the policy of naming Mission schools as contract schools because they are not profit making and Private Schools as Liberal schools not deserving government financial support. They were then going to offer sufficient subvention to mission schools. But nothing came from it.
Disrespecting the school/road map
Then there was the issue of the school map. The idea was to make sure that once there was an existing school anywhere without enough children, no school should be built near it. This too has not been respected. Instead we have had government schools planted just in front of some of our schools as if beckoning to the children to come over. And some have done so. Then Government turned to our teachers and recruited them as government teachers. Although it is good for those teachers, it is not good for our schools. They could have been some other way out yet government has pursued a line of action that would collapse our schools. The question that is on one’s lips is whether government still requires the participation of Mission bodies in the education of Cameroonians.
Those seeking the death of Mission Schools should know that they would never even have been there except for Mission Schools, as some of them were educated at the cost of the missionaries. The first secondary school in Anglophone Cameroon, which took in students irrespective of their religious beliefs, was St. Joseph’s College, Sasse, opened in 1939. It educated most people who are now policy makers in Cameroon, but they show no mercy for Mission Schools which gave them the education.
Why harmonisation Cannot Work
Mission Schools can boast of being the pioneers and champions of education in Cameroon. And to be strangulated by the very people they have educated is the worst tragedy. It would also be necessary to note that the plan to harmonise education in Cameroon could not and will never work for two reasons. First the French system of educational administration was too centralised and linked with France, while the English system, though also located in their colonial master’s home, was decentralised. The struggle between a centralised and a decentralised system has been a problem in all areas of life in Cameroon. The struggle is still on though we are moving ahead.
The second problem was that education in French was an extension to France while English education was rooted in Britain. It was not just a mere struggle between French and English but a larger struggle between the two masters, where the French claimed superiority. It was therefore a struggle for French hegemony. As the saying goes, when two elephants are fighting the grass suffers. Globalisation is winning the fight for us. There will be no losers and no winners but only the supreme interest of Cameroonians. For this, we thank the university men and women with their high sense of objectivity.
As I fumbled with these thoughts and carrying the pain of seeing our schools being destroyed by their very beneficiaries, I tumbled on a news item in The Post NO 01166 about ‘University Syllabuses to Undergo Reform’, from Prof. Nnomo. She announced to Cameroonians that the Francophone universities were shifting from their present university programme to the Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate, BMP system because the present global world favours mobility and common reference. Even though it is English orientated, it is a better system in the present world because it offers certificates that are common and can be recognised anywhere in the world. It therefore gives students a passport into the Global world.
That is an objective evaluation of a system in terms of what it will offer beneficiaries and not some other interests which have nothing to do with the student. I think this is an ice cracker and suggests an objective way of evaluating an educational system. I give credit to her and her team of experts. May they propel their colleague Ministers of Basic and Secondary Education to be just as objective. That is when we can claim that we have an educational policy which serves beneficiaries’ interest.
Some years ago I read a 1962 UNESCO Report on Education in Cameroon. This report was done on the orders of Cameroon’s late President Ahmadou Ahidjo. It was aimed at guiding him formulate an Education policy for the then emerging Cameroon, that is, as Francophone Cameroon was uniting with Anglophone Cameroon. Up to then the educational policies were to serve the colonial interest in both territories. There was a dire need for a policy orientation to serve the interest of the new masters. That report advised that education should be structured to foster Bilingualism and Harmonisation of the two systems of education. At the background of harmonisation, assimilation was articulated. That means education was to be a tool for the Francophonisation of Cameroon. These two ideological concepts, Bilingualism and Harmonisation have been the driving forces of the Structural Reforms of Education at the level of primary and secondary school education, then under the Ministry of National Education up to 1995.
The machinery was put in place to set it rolling
First the Anglophones lost the 8 years of Primary Education in 1964 which produced matured pupils through the primary schools at a time when the colonial masters were searching for clerks and office messengers who could understand them in their offices.
Second, some thing had to be done about the schools in Anglophone Cameroon which were almost entirely in the hands of Mission bodies; they were 424 with only 3 NA (Native Authority) primary or councils schools and no government schools. The administration was also decentralised with some degree of autonomy.
In Francophone Cameroon, out of 1,453 primary schools the State owned 977. The administration was highly centralised and linked to France. The West Cameroon government had continued the colonial system of Grants in Aids to sponsor education in Mission schools. Such sponsorship had gone to the extent that primary school education was free in all schools by 1965 and the West Cameroon Government had introduced an Education Tax to sponsor education. This system was the second to go. State subvention, which was to be given, “eventuallement” replaced the Grant in Aids.
That meant State subsidy for education was no longer a right but a privilege which the State could respect at its own discretion. However, government managed to offer subsidies to Mission schools with supplementary grants at the end of the school year to make up for any deficits which were recorded. This went on till 1987 when the government began to hold brakes on subvention to Mission Schools. At the same time it pounced on some Mission Schools and converted them to State Schools without compensation even though law no, 76/15 of July 8, 1976 required some compensation be paid. It was simply the question of might is right. The Catholic Church lost almost all her schools in what is Momo Division today.
One can recall the controversy whether Grade III teachers were more qualified than Grade I teachers. When Government took over some of our schools and the teachers, it had been erroneously thought that was the case and they were allocated higher salary scales than Grade I teachers. It took a long time to have this issue cleared out but one can imagine that some teachers got off the hook. This was a demonstration of what the Francophones have been doing when it comes to educational matters concerning Anglophone schools. They presume that what they think they know is right when in fact it is actually wrong. It has been the same thing when it comes to translating examination questions from French to English. One is tempted to ask whether there are no Anglophones in the ministry.
The break to harmonisation
The driving force to assimilate the Anglophone System of Education came to a halt from April 23, 1989. That was the third and closing date of a National Education Conference the Minister of National Education had organised. The goal was to formulate new policies on the structure and content of education. The hidden agenda was to come up with the plan to assimilate the Anglophone System of Education. The Minister was behind the conference hall boasting among his colleagues that what his predecessors had struggled to do but failed, he was going to do in three days. He was going to put the final nail on the coffin of the Anglophone System of Education with a few strokes of the pen and all the wrangling over the Cameroon General Certificate of Education Examination (GCE) would come to a stop.
Unfortunately for him and very providentially for Anglophones news of the secret agenda reached some top Anglophone secondary schools and they immediately went rioting. Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology (CCAST) Bambili was the first to start, CCAST Kumba followed and from then the news was spreading like wild fire to all the colleges. One remembers the Minister announcing to the Delegates of the South West and North West Provinces with all their principals to return immediately that night to keep calm in their schools. The conference continued on that fateful day. The Minister came into the conference hall exactly at 1 o’clock but as soon as he entered his guard taped him on the back and whispered to him. All we could see was that he carried his files and went out in a fury without a word. It was only when we went out on a short break that news came from Yaounde to the conference Centre, that the French National 1 o’clock news had announced the President had relieved the Minister from his post. That evening at 6 pm a new Minister was installed. The resolutions of that conference were never read. They were nipped in the bud and we never heard of them any more. The minister’s job was sacrificed on the altar of peace in schools.
By Rev. Dr. Yufanyi Evaristus
From 1994 to about 1997 the Government of Cameroon offered no subvention to our schools. We had audit control from the Supreme State Control Team from Yaounde, and after the control they were satisfied with our accountability and assured us that the debt would be paid from the Highly Indebted Poor Country’s Initiative Fund. The debt stood at about FCFA 800million from 1992 to 2003. Till today nothing has come from it. The schools almost strangulated the Archdiocese but for the patience of teachers for which we remain ever grateful.
The Anglophone diocese accumulated more debts because we have a long tradition of trained teachers with higher salaries and Francophones have but teachers trained on the spot with lower salaries. Yaounde and Douala could manage the situation with a little increase in fees but any increase in fees on our part would have been deceptive and fatal because they would still not have made it. The World Bank project for free primary education had a timeline to be extended to Mission Schools, instead Government came up with the policy of naming Mission schools as contract schools because they are not profit making and Private Schools as Liberal schools not deserving government financial support. They were then going to offer sufficient subvention to mission schools. But nothing came from it.
Disrespecting the school/road map
Then there was the issue of the school map. The idea was to make sure that once there was an existing school anywhere without enough children, no school should be built near it. This too has not been respected. Instead we have had government schools planted just in front of some of our schools as if beckoning to the children to come over. And some have done so. Then Government turned to our teachers and recruited them as government teachers. Although it is good for those teachers, it is not good for our schools. They could have been some other way out yet government has pursued a line of action that would collapse our schools. The question that is on one’s lips is whether government still requires the participation of Mission bodies in the education of Cameroonians.
Those seeking the death of Mission Schools should know that they would never even have been there except for Mission Schools, as some of them were educated at the cost of the missionaries. The first secondary school in Anglophone Cameroon, which took in students irrespective of their religious beliefs, was St. Joseph’s College, Sasse, opened in 1939. It educated most people who are now policy makers in Cameroon, but they show no mercy for Mission Schools which gave them the education.
Why harmonisation Cannot Work
Mission Schools can boast of being the pioneers and champions of education in Cameroon. And to be strangulated by the very people they have educated is the worst tragedy. It would also be necessary to note that the plan to harmonise education in Cameroon could not and will never work for two reasons. First the French system of educational administration was too centralised and linked with France, while the English system, though also located in their colonial master’s home, was decentralised. The struggle between a centralised and a decentralised system has been a problem in all areas of life in Cameroon. The struggle is still on though we are moving ahead.
The second problem was that education in French was an extension to France while English education was rooted in Britain. It was not just a mere struggle between French and English but a larger struggle between the two masters, where the French claimed superiority. It was therefore a struggle for French hegemony. As the saying goes, when two elephants are fighting the grass suffers. Globalisation is winning the fight for us. There will be no losers and no winners but only the supreme interest of Cameroonians. For this, we thank the university men and women with their high sense of objectivity.
As I fumbled with these thoughts and carrying the pain of seeing our schools being destroyed by their very beneficiaries, I tumbled on a news item in The Post NO 01166 about ‘University Syllabuses to Undergo Reform’, from Prof. Nnomo. She announced to Cameroonians that the Francophone universities were shifting from their present university programme to the Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate, BMP system because the present global world favours mobility and common reference. Even though it is English orientated, it is a better system in the present world because it offers certificates that are common and can be recognised anywhere in the world. It therefore gives students a passport into the Global world.
That is an objective evaluation of a system in terms of what it will offer beneficiaries and not some other interests which have nothing to do with the student. I think this is an ice cracker and suggests an objective way of evaluating an educational system. I give credit to her and her team of experts. May they propel their colleague Ministers of Basic and Secondary Education to be just as objective. That is when we can claim that we have an educational policy which serves beneficiaries’ interest.
Some years ago I read a 1962 UNESCO Report on Education in Cameroon. This report was done on the orders of Cameroon’s late President Ahmadou Ahidjo. It was aimed at guiding him formulate an Education policy for the then emerging Cameroon, that is, as Francophone Cameroon was uniting with Anglophone Cameroon. Up to then the educational policies were to serve the colonial interest in both territories. There was a dire need for a policy orientation to serve the interest of the new masters. That report advised that education should be structured to foster Bilingualism and Harmonisation of the two systems of education. At the background of harmonisation, assimilation was articulated. That means education was to be a tool for the Francophonisation of Cameroon. These two ideological concepts, Bilingualism and Harmonisation have been the driving forces of the Structural Reforms of Education at the level of primary and secondary school education, then under the Ministry of National Education up to 1995.
The machinery was put in place to set it rolling
First the Anglophones lost the 8 years of Primary Education in 1964 which produced matured pupils through the primary schools at a time when the colonial masters were searching for clerks and office messengers who could understand them in their offices.
Second, some thing had to be done about the schools in Anglophone Cameroon which were almost entirely in the hands of Mission bodies; they were 424 with only 3 NA (Native Authority) primary or councils schools and no government schools. The administration was also decentralised with some degree of autonomy.
In Francophone Cameroon, out of 1,453 primary schools the State owned 977. The administration was highly centralised and linked to France. The West Cameroon government had continued the colonial system of Grants in Aids to sponsor education in Mission schools. Such sponsorship had gone to the extent that primary school education was free in all schools by 1965 and the West Cameroon Government had introduced an Education Tax to sponsor education. This system was the second to go. State subvention, which was to be given, “eventuallement” replaced the Grant in Aids.
That meant State subsidy for education was no longer a right but a privilege which the State could respect at its own discretion. However, government managed to offer subsidies to Mission schools with supplementary grants at the end of the school year to make up for any deficits which were recorded. This went on till 1987 when the government began to hold brakes on subvention to Mission Schools. At the same time it pounced on some Mission Schools and converted them to State Schools without compensation even though law no, 76/15 of July 8, 1976 required some compensation be paid. It was simply the question of might is right. The Catholic Church lost almost all her schools in what is Momo Division today.
One can recall the controversy whether Grade III teachers were more qualified than Grade I teachers. When Government took over some of our schools and the teachers, it had been erroneously thought that was the case and they were allocated higher salary scales than Grade I teachers. It took a long time to have this issue cleared out but one can imagine that some teachers got off the hook. This was a demonstration of what the Francophones have been doing when it comes to educational matters concerning Anglophone schools. They presume that what they think they know is right when in fact it is actually wrong. It has been the same thing when it comes to translating examination questions from French to English. One is tempted to ask whether there are no Anglophones in the ministry.
The break to harmonisation
The driving force to assimilate the Anglophone System of Education came to a halt from April 23, 1989. That was the third and closing date of a National Education Conference the Minister of National Education had organised. The goal was to formulate new policies on the structure and content of education. The hidden agenda was to come up with the plan to assimilate the Anglophone System of Education. The Minister was behind the conference hall boasting among his colleagues that what his predecessors had struggled to do but failed, he was going to do in three days. He was going to put the final nail on the coffin of the Anglophone System of Education with a few strokes of the pen and all the wrangling over the Cameroon General Certificate of Education Examination (GCE) would come to a stop.
Unfortunately for him and very providentially for Anglophones news of the secret agenda reached some top Anglophone secondary schools and they immediately went rioting. Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology (CCAST) Bambili was the first to start, CCAST Kumba followed and from then the news was spreading like wild fire to all the colleges. One remembers the Minister announcing to the Delegates of the South West and North West Provinces with all their principals to return immediately that night to keep calm in their schools. The conference continued on that fateful day. The Minister came into the conference hall exactly at 1 o’clock but as soon as he entered his guard taped him on the back and whispered to him. All we could see was that he carried his files and went out in a fury without a word. It was only when we went out on a short break that news came from Yaounde to the conference Centre, that the French National 1 o’clock news had announced the President had relieved the Minister from his post. That evening at 6 pm a new Minister was installed. The resolutions of that conference were never read. They were nipped in the bud and we never heard of them any more. The minister’s job was sacrificed on the altar of peace in schools.
By Rev. Dr. Yufanyi Evaristus