By Macdonald Ayang, November 21, 2016
Cameroon Journal, Yaounde – Aggrieved teachers in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon begin an indefinite strike action today November 21, 2016.
The strike comes days after the teachers boycotted a meeting convened by Jacques Fame Ndongo, Higher Education Minister, aimed at pursuing solutions to the myriad of grievances the teachers have raised relating to the Anglophone sub-system of education in Cameroon.
Fame Ndongo, who’s Chancellor of Academic Orders and Chairperson of an inter-ministerial committee in charge of examining and proposing solutions to preoccupations of Teachers’ Syndicates, last week, summoned leaders of Anglophone teachers’ unions for a crisis meeting in Yaounde.
But the highly advertised meeting scheduled to take place in Room 1036 at the 11th floor of the Ministry of Higher Education Friday November 18, was boycotted by leaders of the syndicates that were invited.
We gathered that not only did the teachers snub the Higher Education Minister’s meeting because they saw it as a ploy to dissuade them from going ahead with their strike action; the
syndicate leaders also argued that the Higher Education boss has often demonstrated bad faith in declarations and actions towards aggrieved teachers over the years.
The teachers also faulted him for convening last Friday’s meeting in Yaounde instead of a venue in the North West or South West Regions where they were planning to embark on the industrial strike action and for also not informing them of a clear cut agenda for the meeting.