About 500 teachers demonstrate in Ngaoundéré

Nearly 500 teachers took to the street to protest the unfavourable terms with the Ministry of Basic Education ( MINEDUB) in Ngaoundere recently.

The protest which took place May 5 involved the teachers of the educational community in the city of Ngaoundere. The main objective of this march was to express their discontentment with the authorities of the educational sector. Holding placards, the teachers traveled almost 2 km to the esplanade to present their petition to the Governor of the Adamawa region.

The initiative undertaken by the teachers dates from the previous publication of the list of recruited teachers by the Ministry of Basic Education (MINEDUB). Regrettably the list showed only 200 teachers out of the 600 teachers engaged in 2012 in the whole region that was sent to the National Recruitment Committee.

Following investigations, it emerged that most of them were not selected during the 5th wave of recruitment in 2009, to operate in the Far North region.

To close the gaps observed amongst institutions in the region of Adamawa, teachers who have not been selected continued to practice as volunteers in public schools.

According to them, the volunteering work is to help the government out of the region throes of under-education, with the hope that during the next recruitment season, their names would be included.

"I am very surprised that my name is not on this list, yet my private colleagues doing their job have been placed elsewhere," protested Daniel Abou, teacher at Youkou Public School, located in the outskirts of Ngaoundere.

Favoritism

The teachers reportedly headed for the Governor Abakar Ahmat but were instead returned to the prefect of the department of Vina, Justin Nvondo. An initiative that resulted in a dialogue amongst the regional delegate of basic education, Maouloudou Amadou, the teachers and the Prefect of the Vina.

According to sources, Maouloudou Amadou assured the teachers of a possible recruitment which is underway within the MINEDUB. He noted that the sector looks to recruit almost 10, 000 teachers in the coming months. A promise that calmed the wrath of teachers gathered at the premise of the prefect of the Vina.

"We hope that this promise is true otherwise how are we going to survive? I have two children and a woman. I can no longer take care of my family because of the difficulties and in addition"said Husseini Baba, a teacher who is awaiting recruitment.

"Frankly, this is not normal, it should instead proceed like in the days of Mrs Haman Adama, but when we forget those who had been there, and instead we take those who are just out of school, why won’t we embark on this kind of protest? " asks Ms If Biaga, a teacher at the public school of the Gendarmerie of Ngaoundere.

Apparently it is not only Ngaoundere that had had to deal with such a protest. The teachers of the Ocean Division thronged the office says Senator Gregory Mba Mba, on 5 May.

They were 103 teachers to request the intervention of the authority for Kribi I and II to better be represented on the list of MINEDUB.