Anglophone teachers demand cancellation of Police entrance exams

A coalition of Anglophone teachers’ trade unions is calling for the cancellation of the recruitment exams into the police corps, notably that of the student inspectors of police.

Executive bureau of three teachers’ trade unions – Presbyterian Education Authority Teachers’ Trade Union, PEATTU, Catholic Education Workers’ Trade Union, CEWOTU, and Teachers’ Association of Cameroon, TAC, held a joint meeting in Bamenda Monday, April 6, where they called the attention of President Paul Biya to what they described as another injustice against Anglophones, suggesting that it has the potential of threatening peace in the country.

The teachers, in their letter to the head of state, make specific reference to the entrance examination for Anglophone aspirants for the position of Police Inspectors. They said it is necessary to cancel the exam because the English translation of the exam was horribly done and retarded the ability of Anglophone candidates to perform well.

The teachers’ trade unions noted that they had reasons to conclude that the other entrance examinations into the other categories of the police school might not have been different and that they surely would have had the same short-comings and aberrations which they saw in the student inspectors’ examination questionnaire.

Pointing out the short-comings, they stressed that the examination lacked instructions that usually guide candidates on how to answer examination questions with accuracy. For example, “The title, “Sujet en Français”, which did not convey any meaning in French, was shoddily translated into English to give the howling meaningless ‘Subject in English.” They stated.

They equally noted that the questions were poorly translated into English with stilted incomprehensible choice of words. “At the level of student-inspectors, we judge that the examination was sub-standard and lacked reproducibility.”

They added that by this it meant that candidates were subjected to the same examination over and over; and the results were not reliable especially as the questions were arbitrary to a greater extent.

The unions have equally drawn the attention of the president to the fact that such short-comings and aberrations in public examinations give the impression to the world that Cameroonians in positions of authority do not bother to respect issues of national identity.

This, they say can be affirmed on grounds that those who set these public examinations always deliberately choose to flout the country’s official policy of bilingualism, thereby deliberately mocking the country’s cherished constitution. “It cannot be gainsaid that these poor translations are always deliberately intended to fail Anglophone candidates who go in for these exams.” They intimated.

They have equally expressed concern over the continuous silence of the authorities in the wake of the many repeated cries over such shoddy translations, citing the cases of “Polytechnic Yaoundé, HTTTC Bambili, ENSET Douala as well as the Probatoire, CAP and Baccalaureat examinations for Anglophones.” They noted with regret.

They have called on President Biya to set up a panel to probe into the scandal.

“We call for a total cancellation of the said examination, the only thing that will soothe our decent nationalistic sensibilities. We, Anglophones are tired of being taken for granted and treated with injustice and bad faith in our country.”