YAOUNDE -- Anglophones are not backing off a massive boycott of recruitment exams into the combined military academy, EMIA,  it emerged Tuesday. They are protesting a biased requirement to sit the test.

A petition by the teacher's trade union CATTU remained ignored at the PM.s office this week and union officials intensified their campaign for Anglophone candidates to stay away from the October exam.

"If we do not react now, they will carry this to other examinations," CATTU secretary-general, Simon Nkwenti, told us by phone last evening.

Anglophones are required to present at least three Advanced Level paper passes while Francophones need a simple baccalaureate pass for the same exams.

Two papers are considered a pass in the GCE A' Level but Anglophone candidates are further limited because EMIA will not take a pass in Religious Studies for a paper.

As the first week of October deadline nears, Nkwenti said CATTU had received no indication from the prime minister's office that this complaint was being looked into.

At a press conference in Bamenda, he called on Anglophones to shun the recruitment, calling the discriminatory condition an affront on the Anglophone education system.

Even candidates who qualify are being asked to stay off because their participation would be a betrayal of their peers and educational system, Nkwneti said.

He added that only an equal requirement from candidates of both education systems will solve the problem, which may easily take a political twist.

The EMIA entrance exam billed for early next month is the most prized military recruitment in the country. It is the only point of entrance for cadet officers.

It is not the first time Anglophones are facing discrimination in public exams. In 2003, a group of Anglophone students petitioned then PM Peter Mafani Musonge after they were denied access to the school of administration and magistracy (ENAM) examinations hall.

CATTU has pushed for some important innovation in the English sub-system of education.

Early this year they pushed for and obtained a technical studies faculty for the teachers training college ENS in Bambili.

These innovations came with a big amount of change for the institution.

Nkwenti also discussed the coming elective general assembly of CATTU in October.

Comments (2)

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written by Maryline Allo, January 12, 2010

Where will anglophones be 20 years from now some of our brothers in government have sold their conscience and donot even care how the others are been treated
are we safe?

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written by NDIKUM CHRISTOPHER, April 08, 2011

IN JUST ABOUT EVERY STREAM OF "NATIONAL" LIFE [ MY USE OF NATIONAL IS BRACKETED BECAUSE CAMEROON IS NOT A NATION YET. THE MAJOR RIFT IN CONSCIOUSNESS BETWEEN ANGLOPHONE CAMEROON, AND THE OTHER SIDE IS TOO DEEP TO MEASURE ]. THE DOOR IS CONTINUALLY SHIFTING INFRONT OF ANGLOPHONES. NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY STRIVE, THEY CANNOT GET IN BECAUSE JUST WHEN THEY THINK THEY CAN GET IN, THE DOOR INFRONT OF THEM SHIFTS. WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO EXCLUDE RELIGIOUS STUDIES? TO DEMAND THREE ADVANCED LEVELS, INSTEAD OF TWO? CAN SOMEONE TELL THE PUBLIC WHY NO ANGLOPHONE HAS NEVER HELD ANY OF THE KEY MINISTERIAL POSTS OF DEFENCE, TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATION, FINANCE, AND NATIONAL EDUCATION? THE END OF THE FEDERAL SYSTEM DESTROYED WHAT VENEER OF AUTONOMY VESTED IN THE STATE OF WEST CAMEROON. WHERE WILL ANGLOPHONES BE IN 20 YEARS? ANSWER: NOT IN TWENTY, BUT IN 20X20 TO THE MILLIONTH POWER. THEY WILL BE ALIVE AND WELL. THEIR CONSCIOUSNESS IS INDESTRUCTIBLE.THAT SPIRIT OF CONSCIOUSNESS HAS NEVER BEEN DEFEATED IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY. LOOK NO FURTHER THAN THE BIBLICAL STORY OF THE JEWS. DOES 1947 RING ANY BELLS?

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