Education: activists say children are taught subjects which can never help their future
By Shanta Sih
The CEO of Civic Watch (a community based company which provides communities with knowledge in skills development and builds community influencers), Ngala Desmond, and Multimedia Journalist Mussa Comfort have urged government authorities to review and make some changes in the educational system.
The two Cameroonian activists spoke with the national broadcast house, CRTV, earlier this February 14. Mussa Comfort lamented on the fact that, Cameroonian youth and children are taught in school what cannot help their future and insist on the fact that, most young people have great ideas and talents, skills buried within them but cannot bring those amazing ideas and skills out because they are forced to study Physics, Mathematics and fishing in different countries rather than focus on what they are good at. The journalist says this is the main reason behind unemployment in Cameroon and Africa:
” Young persons are taught 14 subjects in primary school carrying heavy bags to school, parents spending so much money to buy useless text books and university students studying courses that add no value of professionalism. If our government can see that the curriculum has a problem and trim down some of those subjects, the economy will be better”.
The CEO of Civic watch Ngala Desmond applauds the decent works carried out by the ministry of civic education in creating more vocational training centers and making tools available to the students.
“I personally grant employment to thousands of youths and what I do is build ideas from young persons and see into it that I bring out those great ideas and materialise them. I believe more in teaching a child how to fish than putting the fish into his or her mouth. Cameroon has such great young persons and they hold the nation for a better tomorrow”.
The government have equally been asked to provide electricity in remote villages so youths stop rural exodus. ” If these youths have good electricity and water in their villages, they will stay back for development but they migrate to different towns and sometimes out of Cameroon in search of better living conditions and it’s shameful that in this century there are communities that stay for months without electricity and water,” Mussa Comfort added.
It has been said that the training university students undergo do not match with what is required on the labour market. The government has also been asked to take time off to attend some thesis presentations in professional schools and try funding some of the great ideas students have that mostly die due to lack of implementation and funding.
