“There is a lot of Sabotage and Propaganda on schools in the North West” -Regional Pedagogic Adviser

 Paffe Nungu Jackaline Kenye, the Regional Pedagogic Adviser for Primary Education at the Regional Delegation of Basic Education for the Northwest Region has complained that there is a lot of sabotage and propaganda by schools with buildup to the kick off of the 2016-2017 Academic year slated for September 6. Though an administrator, she is equally the proprietress and Founder of Model Inclusive Bilingual Complex which has a nursery and Primary practicing school. The complex also runs a Bilingual Teacher Training Institute which she refers to as the model of Inclusive Education in Cameroon.

Speaking to this reporter at the weekend in Bamenda, she said what made Model Inclusive Bilingual Complex Bamenda special was the fact that the school has all types of children from different groups included in the same classrooms. The teachers who manage these different categories of children in the same classroom are equally inclusive she said.  

Commenting on the tendency for clandestine schools to insistently stay on despite all the efforts put in to put an end to this phenomenon, she said parents go out there to schools without knowing if these schools are authorized by the Minister. She explained that in Basic Education for example, they usually come out with a list of authorized schools and that list is published and announced through radio stations. Immediately schools reopen, they again go out for the monitoring of school re-opening in all the Divisions in the Northwest Region.  It is after monitoring, that they come out with the list of schools that have not been authorized to function. At this stage she said “we then form a team involving the Police, the Divisional Officers and move out to close the unauthorized schools.”

Decrying the existence of clandestine schools, she said these establishments are harboring children who are all Cameroonians. “We need to know what they are doing and if they are respecting the programme from the ministry. We need to know if they are secured and if the people running the schools are qualified.  We have been following up this issue of clandestine schools and this year will not be different.”

 Asked if the establishments that she ran were shining examples of legalized schools she said “as part of the team implementing policy in the region, I cannot run an unauthorized school. My Schools are authorized. The Model Inclusive Bilingual Nursery and Primary School was authorized on the 4^th of September 2012 and the school is receiving subventions from the Government. A school which is not authorized cannot receive subvention from the government. Secondly, the teacher training institute which came to supplement this primary school is also authorized. It was authorized on the 8^th of September 2015 by the Minister of Secondary Education, Louis Bapez Bapez at the time. That authorization was for the creation and now we’ve had an authorization given by the present Minister of Secondary Education which was signed on the 14^th of January 2016. This year, the Ministry of Secondary Education has sent the names of authorized schools in the North West Region and the maximum number of children to train. The name of Model Inclusive School came from the Ministry to the Delegation of Secondary Education.”

The cause of this problem is that many people jump into education with a business mind intended to experiment a new line of business she said adding that before getting into this branch of education, she studied in three universities in London, Czech Republic and Fontis University in Holland. “From Fontis University I had a Master Degree in Inclusive Education. I was equally trained by the Cameroonian Government as an Inspector from Higher Teacher Training College ENS Yaounde where I did English Modern Letters and Sciences of Education. We were trained as Administrators. I first of all worked in the Teacher Training College for eight years before being appointed as Divisional Pedagogic Adviser where I worked for three years. Presently I am the Regional Pedagogic Adviser for Primary Education.”

She said the only expert advice she could give Parents was that the best place to get information from is at the Delegations. Parents she said simply needed to go to the Delegation of Secondary Education and ask for the list of authorized schools.  Hear her, “don’t listen to individuals because there is a lot of sabotage going on and propaganda that people make about their schools. This is because there is competition in business and some people have a coward’s attitude in the way they face this competition. Parents should not listen to individuals but should rather go to the various delegations linked to education and ask for the list of authorized schools.”

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“We are launching a health drive to change the hospital going attitude of Cameroonians”

–Dr Tasang Andrew, Atlantic Medical Foundation, Tiko

Dr. Tasang Andrew

You are carrying out a health drive programme in which you have brought in some experts. For this to have any effect, you have to change the general Cameroonian’s hospital going attitude.

Cameroonians need to change their hospital going attitude. We are launching this programme to change their hospital going attitude. It is indeed an uphill task. Cameroonians are known to neglect their health. It is however true that we black Africans in general suffer from this weakness. The notion of preventive medicine does not exist to us. In Europe, life expectancy is longer simply because they do regular medical checkups unlike us. We wait until it is too late when they are carrying us on the stretcher. In most cases, we just come to the hospital to die. I think we should change our pattern of life and the way we perceive things. We give preference to unimportant things like buying bottles of beer at the expense of saving for health needs. When you prescribe drugs for amounts as small as 2000 FCFA, they say it is much and end up not buying prescribed drugs. 

What aspects of health problems is your programme going to touch?

They say charity begins at home so let me start with the fact that me as an Obstetrician Gynecologist is going to participate in this health drive programme focusing on this aspects of health. We have a lot of things to do in Gynecology. The most recurrent is infertility. There are a lot of infertile couples. There are some who have had a child or two and then suddenly stopped giving birth to children. To solve this problem we will have to look at the issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. You know that now there is a lot of irresponsible sexual activity enhanced by changing habits of the younger generations. Their ways are not like ours since we grew up in a very reserved manner. We will also take care of all diseases concerning women though for now I can only mention a few. It is equally true that many of the young people suffering from sexual weakness only need psychotherapy but in some cases there could be a background of infection. It is not normal that a young man should have sexual weakness and for a woman to have frigidity. 

We equally understand that you are bringing in some dermatologists among other specialists. 

In the villages we have a lot of diseases ranging from rashes to cancer so we have a dermatologist here to take care of things. At times you have some rashes that do not respond to medication so there is a doctor who is a specialist in skin diseases. That’s what we refer to as a dermatologist. Albinos for example need a lot of skin care so he is there for that. 

Cosmetologists consist part of your health drive team. Who is a cosmetologist?

He is one whose business is to render the skin beautiful. They enhance the natural beauty of the skin. Many women have the habit of using skin bleaching agents. This is terrible. Your natural color is the best and changing your skin color exposes you to a lot of diseases amongst which are cancer.

So what will be the role of the medical biologist?

Medicine without the laboratory is nothing because once you have the presumptive diagnoses, that’s when you see somebody and you believe it could be this, you send for the laboratory to confirm. So the specialist we have here is somebody with a PhD in Biological Sciences. We do all the advance tests and get the precise diagnoses because with this treatment is halfway gone.

You equally talked about the visiting Ear Nose and Throat specialist who is part of your health drive.

We have so many diseases concerning the ear mouth and throat. There are people who have difficulties in breathing always feeling congested especially when it is cold. This specialist will also take care of those having hearing problems. This is another rare specialty and in the South West Region, this is the only place where you have an ear, nose and throat specialist. The one we have here comes from L’Hopital General the reference hospital in Douala to come and consult here.

Do you have a message for the needy Tiko and Cameroonian population? 

  

Certainly. The only message I have for them is to know that prevention is better than cure. If people prevent diseases, about 90% of diseases we suffer from will not be there. 

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A History of the Christian Church II

 "The world into which Christianity came owed much to the specific influence of Greek thought."

Certain factors in the world of thought into which Christianity came belong to Universal ancient Religion and are of hoary antiquity. 

All men except a few representatives of philosophical sophistication believed in the existence of a power or of powers invisible, super human and eternal controlling human destiny and to be worshiped or placated by prayer, ritual or. Sacrifice. The earth was viewed as the centre of the universe. Around it, the sun planets and stars ran their courses. Above it was the heaven; below, the abode of departed spirits or of the wicked. No conception of what is now called natural law had penetrated the popular mind. All the on-goings of nature were the work of invisible powers of good and evil who ruled arbitrarily. Miracles were therefore to be regarded not merely as possible they were to be expected whenever the higher forces would impress men with the important or the unusual. The world was the abode of innumerable spirits, righteous or malevolent who touched human life in all its phases and who even entered into such possession of men as to control their actions for good or ill. A profound sense of unworthiness, of ill desert and dissatisfaction with the existing conditions of life characterized the mass of mankind. The varied forms of religious manifestation were evidences of the universal need for better relations with the spiritual and the unseen, and of men’s longing for help greater than what they could give one another.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY, SOCRATES

Besides these general conceptions common to popular religions, the world into which Christianity came owed much to the specific influence of Greek thought. Hellenistic ideas dominated the intelligence of the Roman Empire, but their sway was extensive only among the more civilized portion of the population. Greek Philosophic speculations at first concerned itself with the explanation of the physical universe. Yet with Heraclitus of Ephesus (about BC 490), though all was viewed as in a sense physical the universe which is in constant flow is regarded as fashioned by a fiery element the all-penetrating reasons of which men’s souls are a part. Here was probably the germ of the logos (…..) conception which was to play such a role in later Greek speculation and Christian Theology. As yet, this shaping element was undistinguished from material warmth or fire. Anaxagoras of Athens (about BC 500-428) taught that a shaping mind (….) acted in the ordering of matter and is independent of it. The Pythagoreans of Southern Italy held that spirit is immaterial and that souls are fallen spirits imprisoned in material bodies. To this belief in immaterial existence they seem to have been led by a consideration of the properties of numbers-permanent truths beyond the realm of matter and not materially discerned.

To Socrates (B.C. 470?-399), the explanation of man himself, not of the universe was the prime object of thought. Man’s conduct; that is morals, was the most important theme of investigation. Right action is based on knowledge and would result in the four virtues-prudence, courage, self control and justice which as “the natural virtues” were to have their eminent place in medieval Christian theology. This identification of virtue with knowledge, the doctrine that to know will involve doing was indeed a disastrous legacy to all Greek thinking and influential in much Christian speculation notably in the Gnosticism of the second century.

In Socrates’ Disciple, Plato-(BC 427-347), the early Greek mind reached its highest spiritual attainment. He is properly described as a man of mystical piety as well as of the profoundest spiritual insight. To Plato, the passing forms of this visible world give no real knowledge. That knowledge of the truly permanent and real comes from our acquaintance with the “ideas” those changeless archetypal universal patterns which exist in the invisible spiritual world- the intelligible world since known by reason rather than by the senses-and gives whatever of reality is shared by the passing phenomena present to our senses. The soul knew these ideas in previous existence.

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