That Dialogue Begins In Earnest!

Today, Thursday January 12 is crucial, very crucial indeed in the search for a lasting solution to the irksome issue of the return of students and pupils of the Anglo-Saxon sub-system of education in the North-West and South-West regions of the country.

In effect, the chairman of the Ad Hoc inter-ministerial Committee “tasked with examining and proposing solutions to the concerns raised by the Anglophone Teachers’ Trade Unions” has convened another meeting of the said committee for today in Bamenda. It is not just another invitation. This one comes on the morrow of what can be considered a major breakthrough in the efforts to get all the parties sit down and tackle the issues in an unsuspecting, honest and convivial environment. Two days ago, the government met the conditionality posed by the trade unionists to free rioters arrested at the height of the protests in Bamenda and Kumba and detained in Yaounde.

This conditionality has been a major logjam on the road of negotiations. It was not an easy decision because in doing so, government seemed to have sidelined one of its essential responsibilities and could even be perceived as losing face with such a decision. But the supreme interests of the nation and the urgency of saving the hundreds of thousands of students and pupils from the travails of missing an academic year, seemed to be the major motivation of this government act. This is time for real business and the clock is ticking; and quite fast. Students and pupils of the Francophone sub-system started classes last Monday and any further attempt to procrastinate will only deepen the wound of affliction already inflicted on these young Cameroonians.

Imagine that they did not end their first term work and are still to start the crucial second term! Praises must go to the President of the Republic who has given this new direction to the dialogue by ensuring that the arrogant discourse and condescending attitude of some of the government representatives who started the negotiations with the Teachers’ unions has given way to a new orientation. One must admit that dialogue could not prosper with those who even refused to entertain the existence of problems within the Anglophone sub-system of education, let alone sitting down to discuss same.

The same items on the cahier of grievances which received the red ink mark have been brought up for discussion in a new atmosphere of trust and in which all b...