Gov't warned against scrapping Common Law at UB

A proposal by government to scrap Common Law from the curriculum of academic programmes in the nation’s universities and compress some courses in the University of Buea in an attempt to harmonize the educational system in the country has been welcome by Anglophones as a diabolic intention to kill the Anglo-Saxon system of education and culture in the country.

Buea university lecturers, meeting under the auspices of a local chapter of the Union of Teachers of Higher Education in Cameroon, SYNES, have come out with a long list of resolutions in which they warn the government of impending danger should the proposed harmonisation of universities be carried through.

At a meeting convened by the Ministry of Higher Education, MINESUP on May 6, and chaired by the Technical Adviser No.1 in the ministry, on behalf of the minister, regime authorities disclosed its intention to harmonise the academic programmes of ‘fundamental disciplines’ so as to facilitate the mobility of students from one university to another during the academic year.

At the meeting, it was agreed that the harmonization process will start with Law, Political Science and Economic and Management Sciences. The Committee proposed that Common Law, a pure Anglo-Saxon legal inheritance be scrapped from the curriculum while the degree in Management program should have Economics as the base.

Should this go through, Civil Law, a purely francophone legal system would be the only law department to exist in the universities.

The executive of the university of Buea chapter of SYNES met on May 13 to deliberate on the anticipated exercise. They unanimously came to the conclusion that if the harmonization is implemented as envisaged, it would lead to a total obliteration of the Anglo-Saxon system of education in Cameroon.

They argued that the wisdom that guided the educational reforms of the 90s which led to the creation of the unique university in Buea would be defeated by the proposed harmonization.

“The presidential decree creating the University of Buea specifies that it was created in the Anglo-Saxon tradition and therefore, does not have the same complexion as other state universities which would be more readily disposed to harmonization. This means that academic programmes and management at this institution would be tailored more towards the tradition obtained in most English-speaking countries.

The letter to the minister again partly reads: “The proposal to suppress common law from undergraduate law programme is suspect. Common law is unique to Anglophone Cameroon and it is the foundation of legal practice in English-speaking countries while civil law is culturally Francophone. Why would MINESUP envisage a Cameroon with Anglophones but without common law? Could it be part of a vast conspiracy to delete everything in the legal system that identifies Anglophones in Cameroon as an existing cultural group…?

“…The proposal to harmonize political science may even be more sinister. The scope of political science in English is different from what it means in French. The variation in definition means that political science viewed from these two perspectives will have differing emphasis.’’ The lecturers wrote.

The interpretation of harmonization to the regime appears to mean submerging the Anglo-Saxon system into the francophone system.

The Buea varsity teachers are therefore calling on government to harmonize academic programmes in other universities in French Cameroon regions and leave university of Buea alone so as to avoid a distortion of the Anglo-Saxon system that is already taking root and yielding fruits in that institution.