Daily Archives: December 27, 2007

Contract teachers

The problems described by this teacher from Cameroon are typical of the problems faced by teachers throughout Africa. Note that this teacher already had a degree in law, and yet was unable to find work. In order to attract good quality teachers, better pay and conditions are imperative. (I have to admit this is a problem in the UK too, particularly for primary school teachers).

Source: UNESCO Courier no 10 2007

Vincent Bikono: contract worker and not proud of it

In Cameroon, contract workers make up 53% of teaching staff at primary level. Systematically paid less than those with civil servant status and sometimes better qualified, contractors are in the process of founding a union.

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At his makeshift desk in a CM2 class (10-11 year olds) at the Melen public school in Yaoundé, Vincent Bikono, a teacher on contract, is deep in his thoughts while his pupils — 20 boys and 20 girls — complete their first history and geography tests of the school year. “I’m lucky,†he says. “Aid from Japan to Cameroon built three schools in our district. It allowed us to make classrooms less crowded, while in districts like Mballa II, Nlongkak or Tsinga, teachers find themselves in front of 100 pupils. Actually, in our school too, some of the lower grades still have classes numbering 95 children.â€

But that’s as far as this teacher’s “luck†takes him. With his professional diploma – CAPIEM — qualifying him to teach at preschool and elementary levels he found himself in the educational system more out of necessity than by vocation. “I had obtained a degree in law and I was unemployed. A friend one day advised me to take the qualifying exam for the state school for teachers. I passed and in 1998 I started working as a substitute teacher. It was survival instinct,†he recalls. It takes nine months to obtain the diploma that qualifies teachers in Cameroon.

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Working as a teacher in Cameroon

He had to wait eight years to move up from substitute teacher to contractor. In 2006, some 10,300 substitute teachers were promoted, giving them a slightly larger paycheck. But working conditions remain unsatisfactory. “Being a teacher in Cameroon is not particularly pleasant,†confides a disillusioned Mr Bikono. “If you’re a contract worker on top of it, you tend to feel marginal and frustrated.†His monthly salary comes to 99,000 CFA francs (about US$158), a long way from the starting salary of 140,000 CFA francs for a teacher with a civil service job.

“It’s true that as a substitute teacher, I was only making 55,000 CFA francs, 10 months out of 13 in theory, but often more like seven out of 12 in practice….As a contract worker, I get paid every month.†And indeed his salary is much superior to that of teachers in the private sector who earn between 20,000 and 50,000 CFA francs (between 40 and 100 dollars for eight or nine months of the year, as the employer pleases. But Mr Bikono feels he should be paid as much as his civil servant colleagues. “It’s discrimination. We’re doing the same job and we have the same amount of work. In fact, contractors are sometimes better qualified than civil servants, because some of the latter take the CAPIEM exam when they have only a BEPC (lowest level secondary school diploma).†The teacher becomes indignant about his paltry salary, which does not allow him to live decently and forces him to live in his father’s home. His wife has left him, tired of waiting for a “supposed improvement of the situationâ€.

Seven contract workers for three civil servants

Contract teachers play a very important role in Cameroon’s educational system, Vincent Bikono explains. “At the Melen public school, there are seven of us contractors and three civil servants, including the headmistress, the secretary and one teacher.†The Ministry of Basic Education recognizes the importance of contract teachers by listing 36,000 of them in its mid-term expense budget for 2007, not counting the 5,500 new hires last September. According to the government report on the national education system, contractors make up 53% of the teaching workforce at primary level.

His teaching job involves giving pupils about a dozen classes, from |Monday to Friday, from 7.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. “It’s a huge workload. I give classes in grammar, spelling, mathematics, history, geography, English….not to mention sports! Luckily there aren’t too many pupils so when it comes to marking homework, things mostly go well,†recounts Bikono, who says a contract teachers’ union is being set up to better coordinate collective action.

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Dorine Ekwè, journalist at Mutations, Cameroon

© Dorine Ekwé