THANKS FOR THE INVITATION

Greetings to you, my fellow alumni of Ombe, and friends as well as well- wishers of this illustrious institution of technical knowledge and skill building. I am truly delighted by the invitation to make an encore appearance as the keynote speaker at an Ombe Old Students Association’s (OOSA) Annual Convention. My talk this year, 2023, aligns neatly with the Convention Theme to wit, “Technical Education: The Engine of Development.” As conveyed by its title, the speech focuses on the importance of technical education in emerging economies with emphasis on the Anglophone subsystem of technical education in Cameroon. I preface the talk by sharing with you some of my musings regarding the widespread myth of technical education as inferior to grammar or general education

THE PARADOX OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION INFERIORITY

Many a technical school student or alumnus is patently aware of insinuations or outright pronouncements to the effect that technical education is less prestigious than grammar or general education. This is paradoxical given that up until the 1970s, only students who passed in List ‘A’ of the Common Entrance, that is, the national competitive secondary school entrance examination, were qualified to be interviewed for possible admission

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Government Technical College (GTC), Ombe. This coveted institution was the only state-owned secondary technical school in Anglophone Cameroon from its establishment by the British colonial government of Southern Cameroons in 1952 to the mid-1970s. For some duration within this time span, the private sector counted three technical secondary schools, namely Kamerun Technical College (KTC), Nkwen, Bamenda, Vocational College of Arts, Science & Technology (VOCAST), Muyuka, and Fess Technical College, Muyuka. Throughout the entirety of that period, the pride of first place consistently belonged to Ombe. Once admitted, Ombe students who originated from every nook and cranny of Anglo-Cameroon, were required to study both general education courses such as English, French, History, Civics, Mathematics, and Physics, as well as technical discipline-specific courses, including Technical Drawing, Science, Engineering Mathematics, Processes and Materials, and Workshop and Field Practice. So, why is it that technical education has always been viewed as less prestigious than grammar school education despite the fact that its curriculum includes general education courses? I herein explain this ostensible paradox with respect to Anglophone Cameroon at two different but inextricably intertwined levels, namely the local and the global.

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Local Perspectives. Locally, it would be recalled that the first institution of secondary education in Anglo-Cameroon was a grammar school, namely St. Joseph’s College, Sasse Buea, which enrolled its pioneer batch of students in 1939. About a decade later, another grammar school, Cameroon Protestant College (CPC), Bali to be created in 1948. The Government Trade Center (GTC), Ombe, Anglo-Cameroon’s pioneer secondary technical school, was not launched until 1952. Note the appellation, “trade center” as opposed to “technical college.” This was not inadvertent! Rather, it was designed to accentuate the institution’s emphasis on ‘trade training’ in contrast to intellectual formation. Therefore, for the Anglo-Cameroonian society at large, while Sasse and Bali trained ‘book people,’ Ombe trained ‘trades- or craftsmen.’ These latter were, on average older than their peers who enrolled in grammar schools. Consequently, Ombe came to be viewed as an extension of local vocational training workshops or apprenticeship programs. As if to fulfill a false prophecy, technical education in Anglo-Cameroon, until the late-1970s and early-1980s, operated programs that ran for a maximum of four years with no provision for further education. In contrast, general education programs boasted two cycles of five and 2 years respectively; in addition, students had the option of proceeding to the university upon successful completion of the second cycle

Global Perspectives. Globally, technical education has been saddled with a negative reputation whose roots are traceable to the history, culture, social hierarchical structures, economics and investment biases of Eurocentric civilization. European powers, particularly the erstwhile colonizers of African countries such as Cameroon have historically manifested a preference for grammar school education. This entails emphasis on classical subjects such as the humanities—philosophy, literature, arts, and abstract knowledge writ large. In Eurocentric ethos, these are typically considered intellectual pursuits whereas technical education is associated with manual labor and practical work—or ‘blue collar work’ in American parlance—and deemed less prestigious

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Dispelling the Myth of Technical Education as an Inferior Alternative. The disparities between the duration of technical and general education, and the other differences I have already identified, have conspired to firmly engrave the paradoxical image of technical education as an inferior alternative to general education in the minds of Anglo-Cameroonians. Yet, I would be remiss if I end this narrative without underscoring the fact that even the most ardent critics are often compelled to question their negative appraisal of technical education. Many technical school graduates have been known to excel and brilliantly serve roles on national, regional and international stages as university professors, entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, public health experts, medical practitioners, healthcare providers, and military officers inter alia.

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THE ANGLO-CAMEROON TECHNICAL EDUCATION SYSTEM

The Anglo-Cameroon education subsystem has largely been inspired by the British model of education or what proponents fondly characterize as the Anglo-Saxon system. From its inception in Britain, this system has been heavily influenced by social hierarchies and class divisions. Historically, grammar or general education was reserved for children of the elites or members of the upper social strata, while technical education was associated with the working class. This invariably created a perception—veritably or otherwise—that technical education was meant for individuals who were less academically apt or of modest mean

…the goal was never to train technicians capable of meaningfully contributing towards the realization of development goals in an emerging economy such as Cameroon.

A lot has transpired in the technical education space in Anglo-Cameroon since the 1970s—1977, to be precise—when I graduated from Ombe. Ombe is no longer the sole state-owned technical secondary school in the polity. Secondary …the goal was never to train technicians capable of meaningfully contributing towards the realization of development goals in an emerging economy such as Cameroon. technical education now operates on a five-year (1 st cycle) plus two-year (2 nd cycle) system. In addition, more general education courses, such as Biology and Chemistry, have been added to the curriculum

 

This notwithstanding, technical education in the subsystem continues to leave something to be desired due mainly to its colonial foundation. This seriously compromises its ability to prepare graduates capable of dealing with the challenges of the 21 st century. In its current form, the technical education curriculum is deficient on many fronts. Foremost in this regard are the lack of contextual relevance because it was inherited from the colonial past; limited scope because of its primary focus on manual and technical skills designed to address colonial imperatives; Eurocentric bias in that it prioritizes Western knowledge and perspectives while discounting or disparaging local knowledge, indigenous materials and practices; skills mismatch, particularly because the skill set imparted to the learners deviates significantly from what they need in the field; and lack of flexibility and innovation because of the rigid nature of the technical curriculum inherited from the colonial era.

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