Maintaining Excellence in the GCE

Who will fly to the top this year in the General Certificate of Education Examination in Cameroon?  That is the question that is on the lips of many Cameroonians.  Every year, there is very keen competition among secondary schools in English-speaking Cameroon for the lead position in the General Certificate of education Examination.  The common question is: which school will come first on the honor roll?  Always, there are eyes on a number of schools, among which are Sacred Heart College Mankon, PSS Mankon, Our Lady of Lourdes College Mankon, St. Bede's College Mankon, PSS Bafut and Saker Baptist college Limbe. These institutions have distinguished themselves over the years as havens of excellence. Interestingly, all of them are confessional colleges. Some Government colleges do very well too, but we are still to have one of them coming out with a 100% score. They usually argue that they send in more candidates for the exam than the Confessional schools and the candidates who pass in their schools outnumber those who pass in the confessional institutions. Hence, although they do not score 100%, they believe they render greater service to the nation by producing more passes.  Moreover they say because the Confessional colleges limit the number of candidates they send in, they are able to concentrate on that small number and enable them not only to pass but to score excellent grades as well. Some people buy this argument; some do not.
The truth is the confessional colleges do not only score 100% but their grades are spellbinding. Even in the international community they are well known for excellent standards. At home, they sell like hot cakes. Evey year the scramble for admission into them is very competitive.  Only the young ones who are outstanding in performance in the Government Common Entrance Examination and interview are admitted. This year interviews into three of these institutions: Sacred Heart College, Mankon, Our Lady of Lourdes College, and St. Bede's college Ashing have been billed for 15 June at the common venue of Sacred Heart College. It will not be easy for our young ones vying for positions into them. It is expected that only the best will make it. The Excellent standards must be upheld.

Cameroonians outside Cameroon

How many Cameroonians live and work outside Cameroon such as in the United States of America, Germany, France, Britain, China, Japan, and what have You? It is difficult to say, especially for people in Cameroon. What one can say with certainty is that there are thousands of Cameroonians in the United States of America alone.  Same hold true for Europe, Germany, and the other countries of the Western world. While some have decided to live there permanently, some are only working with hope of coming back home for good some day.  They are out for greener pastures. They want to make money.  They want to make as much money as they can. Some of them are studying.  At the end of their studies they hope to return to Cameroon to lend their own contribution to nation building.
Cameroonians in the United States of America as in other western countries are doing wonders back home.  They are contributing to the development of the country significantly. If Bamenda looks very different today, it is to a great degree thanks to them. At the same time, we are losing much by the fact that many of these fellows are outside there.  Many of them are our best brains. But instead of being at home to contribute to build the country they are in a different country building that country. We are told many of them shine where they work.  That could have been shining back at home.
Is it their fault that they are out there instead of being at home to build the motherland? Whose fault is it that many of the best minds of our country are outside in other countries building those countries and ours continues to lag behind?  It is true that those of us who are at home are doing the best we can to move our country forward, but it certainly would have been much better with many of these our big brains at home. It is, therefore, important for us to ask ourselves why our big brains rush away from home to other lands such as the United States of America?  What can we do to bring home these smart guys to put their big minds at the service of the Fatherland?

MRS MBAH GRACE

Mrs. Mbah Grace is one of the leading educationists in Cameroon.  For over thirty years, she has been making her mark in the field of education. Not long ago, she was invloved in the training of young men and women who wished to take up teaching as a career.  She headed the leading Teacher Training College for grade I and II teachers in English-Speaking Cameroon.

Mrs. Mbah had her training as a teacher in Women’s Teacher Training College, (W.T.T.C.) Mankon. After obtaining her Teacher Grade II certificate, she entered Government Teacher Training College (G.T.T.C.) Bamenda where she obtained her Teacher Grade One certificate. She then proceeded to the Higher Teacher Training College (ENS) Bambili and later on moved to Brussels in Belgium where she obtained a Master’s degree in Education. On return to Cameroon, she wanted to have full mastery of her domain at home. Hence, she entered the Higher Teacher Training College in Yaounde from where she graduated with the Higher Teacher’s Certitficate after which she began her career in education.

 Mrs. Mbah has gained tremendous experience in teaching and school administration at home and abroad. What makes her outstanding in her domain, is especially the school she founded and runs. This was her dream from her early years as a teacher in training - to create and run her own school and make it the best of its kind.  She founded EDUCARE in 1995. First, it was a Nursery school. Then, it became a Primary school. Mrs. Mbah was a pioneer in this domain. She created this school at a time when very few in her part of the country thought it could be done. It needed courage to do what some saw as folly. She took the bull by the horns, courageously refusing to listen to any discouraging messages.

Her vision for Educare is to produce quality children who will grow into intelligent, tough and upright citizens. She hopes thus well equipped, they will take up leadership positions in the country and the world and create an impact for the well-being of humanity.

Parent cross the town and even come from neighboring towns to enroll their children in EDUCARE. To many parents who want quality education for their children, Educare is ‘The place to be’.  Much value, indeed, is placed on quality education.  Mrs. Mbah attributes the success of her institution to quality teachers, good discipline, innovative ideas, hard work, prayers and good salaries for her teachers.

She stresses she does not work for money. Her joy comes from making the most of her God-given talents, and helping young ones to become champions.

When she was the principal of the Government Teacher Training College she headed, her ambition was to produce quality teachers with high intellectual prowess and exemplary conduct worthy of emulation.

Mrs Mbah Grace is an example of a success story in the field of education. Despite her success, simplicity and humility remain her most defining qualities. She will hobnob with those of her class but does not despise the downtrodden. The pages of history especially of education unquestionably have a place for her. 

 

Bobe yong Francis

In Success Stories today, we talk about Mr. Yong Francis, an educationist. This man is a veritable visionary and giant in the educational arena in English-speaking Cameroon. He is a self-made man, who, from the most humble beginnings, has risen to the summit by creating and offering educational opportunities to others.  He goes down in history as the man who has made the greatest contribution in educational development in English-speaking Cameroon.

Mr. Yong has spent his whole life creating and building schools. Thanks to his efforts millions of young men and women, whose lives might have been wasted, have had the opportunity to acquire an education. Today, they work gainfully in various sectors of life making a great contribution to nation-building. Some of them have risen to prominent positions.

No one can say if Pa Yong, as he is fondly called today, knew where he was heading to when he made his humble beginnings almost half a century ago. Deprived by financial constraints of the opportunity of acquiring a formal general secondary education himself, he never allowed himself to wallow in self-pity and resignation. He opted for what was affordable: becoming a typist. How he must have admired and envied his more fortunate mates who gained admission into prestigious secondary schools in those days! However, as it turned out, God had a better plan for him. He was destined to teach his fellow compatriots that ‘many roads lead to Rome’; that what matters in life is not where you are but what you do where you are.

Indeed, Mr. Yong’s decision to learn typing and take up a career in the field turned out to be the wisest decision of his life. After his studies, he gained a Government job as a typist.  Then, he had the wonderful vision of offering other less favored children the same opportunity that he had had. He created a Typing Institute. It did not take long for him to realize he was onto a big dream. His was a wise decision.  There was an influx of young boys and girls into his institute. Soon, the number of students was overwhelming. He moved a step higher by making it a commercial college. Even here, the numbers were overwhelming. He created similar colleges in Bambui and his home village, Anyajua. It has been a wonderful success story.

Mr. Yong has not ended at secondary level. He has been in higher education for years. He owns the leading polytechnic in English-speaking Cameroon-National Polytechnic Bambui, where thousands of young people from Cameroon and abroad have a wonderful opportunity in a unique setting to acquire sound, usable technical education.

By and large, Mr. Francis Yong is making an immeasurable contribution in the educational sector in Cameroon. He knows the man-power needs of the nation and the times and goes for the kind of education that will satisfy them. Hence, he has also created a school for the training of medical staff to contribute to close the gap that exists in that sector.

There is no way we can talk of education in Cameroon without the name Francis Yong. Millions of young people have been able to find a stand in life because they had the low-cost opportunity to acquire an education in one of his schools - The Yong Educational Establishments.

This man is a genius. There are many Cameroonians who have gone to the best universities at home and abroad specializing in education and have excellent qualifications in that field; but they are still to make a contribution equal to that of Mr. Yong in the development of education in Cameroon.  His vision, courage, hard work, faith, persistence and perseverance have carved out a unique place for him in the history of Cameroon's education.  His footprints are already on the sands of time.

PROFESSOR BERNARD FONLON

Cameroon's Professor Bernard Nsokika Fonlon of blessed memory was a success in life. His can be called a success story. He was Cameroon’s foremost educationist - a genuine intellectual; a teacher all his life. It can be said that he was born a teacher and he died a teacher.  After his primary education which took him from the Native Authority School in Kumbo in 931 to Saint Anthony’s school, Njinikom in 1938, where he graduated, he taught as a probationary teacher at Shisong. In December, 1941, he entered the Junior Seminary. After he completed the course in 1945, he returned to Cameroon where he taught for two years, in St. Joseph’s college Sasse.

In 1948, he gained admission into the Bigard Memorial Seminary in Okpuala in Owerri, Nigeria which later moved to Enugu in 1951.  After completion of six years of the seven-year course, he was asked to discontinue his studies in the seminary. He then took up a teaching job in Christ the King college in Onitsha in 1954.  He later moved to Europe for further studies in the National University of Ireland; the Sorbonne in France; and Oxford in Britain.

He returned to Cameroon in 1961 after his studies. He joined the Government in 1964 as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Minister of Transport, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and Minister of Public Health. When he left the Government in 1971, he went back to his original job: teaching and joined the teaching core of the University of Yaounde. He taught there until he went on retirement on his 60^th birthday on the 19^th of November, 1984. He died in Canada on the 27^th of August 1986 at the age of 61.

 Professor Bernard Fonlon is a legend in Cameroon. He will be remembered for a long time to come.  Future generations will read about him. Never in the history of Cameroon has more tribute been paid to someone as it has been paid to Professor Bernard Fonlon. Hundreds of tributes were paid to him in churches, in the press and in academic journals when he died. Many more came later.

            If Professor Bernard Fonlon was so admired, it was because of what he stood for and what he offered the world. One of his greatest ambitions was “To educate and inspire the youth.” This ambition, he realized. He educated the youth in primary school; in Secondary school, and in University. He supervised the theses of many students right to PhD.  He spent personal money to educate children who were not his children. (He had no children of his own, not having married all his life.)  The children who lived with him or benefited from his largesse were adopted children. Among them were moslems, Catholics, and Protestants from different tribes.

Professor Bernard Fonlon was an educator par excellence.  He taught not by precept alone but also by example. His life was his first lesson to all his students. One of the greatest lessons he taught was humility. As early as childhood he pledged to live a simple life. “I sprang from humble origins.  I was not favoured by wealth; I was not favoured by rank. I was lowly to live, lowly to die. In one word, it is my ambition to live the life of a simple man.”

He liked that everybody should feel comfortable with him: “whatever I may become, my life, my surrounding, my bearing, shall be such that any man shall find it easy to approach me; and approaching, find himself as in his accustomed environment completely at his ease.”

Did he live up this standard he set for himself?  Those who knew him, among them the Archbishop of Bamenda of blessed memory, His Lordship Paul Verdzekov say he did: “When Bernard died an American friend of his made pointed reference to this aspect of his life and character when he wrote, ‘in some ways, the very fact that he died in semi-obscurity is symbolically appropriate for despite the accomplishments of his life, Fonlon was a humble man who never really sought the lime-light. As others gained fame and notority, he laboured patiently and effectively – as a Government Minister, as the editor of an impressive cultural journal and as a teacher to realize the lofty ideals he had set for himself.’”

He instilled into the young minds a spirit of detachment from worldly things and the qualities of good leadership. To be a good leader he said, it is absolutely necessary that the leader knows where he is ‘leading the people to; should know how best to lead them there; should wage perenial war in life against all the attractions, enticements, and seductions of money, ease and pleasure, worldliness, against the thirst and craving for power and glory; must come to no terms whatsoever with vice; must live in the world with a spirit that is totally dead to the world; must toil in union with God.”

Professor Bernard Fonlon was a great educationist. He inspired many young people who aspired to be like him. He was a role-model as a teacher and leader of men. His reputation as a genuine intellectual went beyond the frontiers of his country. He has been described by many as a great teacher and master of future generations. The ideals that this man stood for, lived for, taught and upheld would make our country great. The story of education in Cameroon will never be complete without a page on Professor Bernard Nsokika Fonlon. His life was a true success story.