Teacher to multi-level leader:Scratching into Dr Hannah Etonde’s world

By Nchendzengang Tatah

In the bustling city of Buea is a woman whose role across several structures calls attention. First as global president of the Fako Women (FAWONE), an indigenous organization to shape development in Fako Division by the women then as chair of one of the largest Presbyterian Church in Cameroon congregations, PC Molyko she also is a local representative at the Buea Council.

Dr. Mrs Mbua Hannah Etonde is a teacher by profession and current Regional Delegate of Secondary Education (MINESEC) for the South West. Adding to these, she is notable to the paramount chiefdom of Buea and title holder in the Great Soppo second class chiefdom. Managing these roles she says is not much of a difficulty as she makes use of delegation. Leadership to Dr Mbua Hannah is about coordinating and supervising the activities of the rest of the team according to the vision in place. Team work she pointed out, makes the work easy. Her work earned her recognition by G2G in 2025 as Courageous Woman.

“I consider myself by God’s grace a resource person and I’m not the one who does it, I work with people,” she stated. As regards FAWONE, their work few years after creation is driven towards peace and hunger eradication. Iya Etonde catalogued their activities including the provision of a solar dryer and warehouse by a member. She hoped this in the long run will empower the local woman, reduce wastage and create jobs. More to these, will be farming on about seven hecter pieces of land which has been given them. Annually, the women engage in awarding meritous students from the Fako while it expands beyond national borders.

Women and politics

Iya Etonde’s statement to the women of her community is to seize the opportunity of the ongoing electoral registration to get voters card in order to make the changes they wish. Women being the greater part of the population is an advantage which the mothers of humanity must make good use of.

“I’m calling on women of voting age to acquire voters card and vote. Because the women are those who feel the pinch more when things don’t work out well,” Councillor Hannah Etonde said. Further admonishing that, the time to prepare by registering was now so that the women can choose what is good when voting. “We should not stay behind and tomorrow we complain that the person who is there is not handling us well,” she noted.

Work and leadership to her is independent of being wether male or female. “I consider myself a human being, I consider myself a civil servant and when work is concerned I don’t consider myself a woman,” Dr Etonde highlighted as her spirit towards duty from August 23, 2000 when she was first appointed principal.

Sizing up secondary education in SW

The religional delegate of Secondary Education for South West, Dr Hannah Etonde Mbua stated that 115, 000 boys and girls are taking classes for the 2024/25 school year in both government and private owned schools across the region. This she said gave a sign of growing recovery eight years into the socio-political conflict. A process of revitalization which she hoped will continue progressively like before the crisis broke out in 2016.

The main challenges of secondary education in the region are mostly in the rural areas going by diagnosis. This is so partly because of the absence of school age going children who had been relocated to urban areas due to the crisis and then the presence of threats. This she maintained, had caused many school doors to remain locked. However, other difficulties like the insufficient number of teachers for some subjects, lack of teachers for some subjects still abound.

As a mechanism to cope inline with the text in place, Dr Etonde said they encourage teachers to pick up hours in neighboring schools such that the gap could easily be filled. She added that eLearning is in the course of being realised by MINESEC such that students who may not have teachers could be taught synonymously online during class time of does who have. Again, teaching staff are redeployed following observations from monitoring systems.

The unique identifier is currently being used in the South West like across Cameroon as introduced by MINESEC. Such that each student has an identification number through out their years in secondary school, wether in government or private owned schools. Dr Hannah Etonde applauded the efforts of parents through the PTA while calling on them to accompany their children through provision of the necessary materials for teaching and learning like computers.