Fraud, disorder characterises contract teachers recruitment

The ongoing recruitment of contract teachers for primary and nursery education has widely been criticised as being replete with fraud and disorder.

It is for this reason that many unsuccessful candidates are casting doubt in the transparency that is supposed to characterise the exercise.

In order to arrest the scarcity of teachers, the Cameroon Government launched the recruitment of contract teachers (PTA teachers) recently. The World Bank and the United Nations Children Education Fund, UNICEF, are bankrolling the project. But many teachers told The Post that the recruitment criteria were sacrificed on the altar of fraud.

“The recruitment had to do with people who graduated before 2012. But the list of 917 candidates that was published at the Delegation of Basic Education in Bamenda is full of names of people who only graduated in 2012.

I graduated from the Government Teachers Training College, GTTC, Fundong in 2010, but my name is not there” one unfortunate candidate told The Post. She said there was every indication that fraud was part of the criteria used to select such candidates. She said she has been teaching in a Government school as a PTA teacher since she left school in 2010.

Another contract teacher, who introduced herself as Lilian, told The Post that, “the list published names of teachers who graduated and were doing something else, instead of teaching in Government schools”.

Many teachers who went through the list that was published at the Centre Regional Delegation of Basic Education in Yaounde screamed in total disappointment. One of them told The Post that the list has names of teachers who are still in school.

Such complaints, The Post learnt, are common in all the regions of the country. Press reports from the Adamawa Region indicate that besides the fraud, the list that the authorities published there has names of people who had long died and many names also appeared repeatedly.

While reacting to the situation, the Executive Secretary of the Cameroon Teachers’ Trade Union, CATTU, Wilfred Tasang, told The Post that some Inspectors and Head teachers are those masterminding the fraud. “I spoke with the Northwest Regional Delegate of Basic Education on this matter and she told me that the fraud is alarming. She said heads will roll on this matter;” Tasang said.

“The people who are eligible for recruitment are PTA teachers who have been teaching in Government Schools in the suburbs for a stipend of FCFA 10,000 a month; but a majority of those who are in the list are people who are coming from elsewhere,” Tasang said, adding that CATTU was following up the matter to ensure that only teachers who have demonstrated the professional zeal by working in such difficult conditions are given a chance.

Following such complaints, The Post learnt, the World Bank and UNICEF are threatening to withdraw their support if the recruitment is not hinged on well defined criteria characterised by transparency and justice. It was in this respect that the Minister of Basic Education issued a release calling on all stakeholders to give transparency a chance in the exercise.

The recruitment exercise is Government’s bid to achieve universal primary education for all which is one of the UN Millennium Development Goals. It is intended to reverse the unfortunate situation wherein schools in rural areas do not have teachers, whereas those in urban areas are over-staffed.

According to officials in the Ministry of Basic Education, such an imbalance deprives children in rural areas of quality education.

Thus, Government is on an onslaught to recruit 9,000 PTA teachers in order to reverse the situation. The recruitment exercise, this time around, has been decentralised.

Mayors, The Post was informed, are part of the exercise. They are expected to help identify some teachers who have been teaching in the suburbs of the Council areas. A circa 3,060 teachers will be recruited this year.