The Executive Secretary General of the
Cameroon Teachers Trade Union CATTU has made public the intention of his
institution to compel all proprietors of confessional and private schools in
the North West and South West regions to pay their teacher’s salaries
particularly for the last one year during which schools were interrupted due to
the socio-economic and political crisis facing the region. Sema Valentine was
speaking on Tuesday during a radio programme on Abakwa FM Radio station in
Bamenda while evaluating Cameroon’s educational sector in 2017.
When the presenter questioned what the
Cameroon Teachers Trade Union was doing about teachers whose salaries were not
paid in 2017, Sema Valentine replied in anger “it is a very vexing issue. I
will say it and say it and say it again. Some of our proprietors are charlocks.
Some of them are inhumane. They preach virtue and practice vice.”
According to the erudite SG confessional
school proprietors have demonstrated unprecedented level of dishonesty. “If you
imagine that in some confessional schools they are insisting and asking parents
to pay school fees for last year and for this year when school fees for last
year were collected and teachers were not paid their salaries starting from
December right up till this September. Some were paid only this September 2017
when schools began. You begin to ask yourself why are people so inhumane?”
On what they have been doing as a teachers
trade union he adds “we have been fighting as a teachers trade union, we have
held meetings with the delegate of Lanour and Social security even in the South
West. Recently there are teachers from a particular denomination who are in
court, at the labour office with their proprietors. It goes same for other
teachers. They have collected money and we didn’t see reason why they should be
paying other sectors of their institutions but not paying teachers who are the
ones that raise more income for them and are treated the way they are.”
The CATTU SG accused the denominations for
doing special collections to support teachers in Churches yet fail to hand such
collections to the teachers. Despite claims that they are waiting for
government subvention Sema adds that “they make a lot of noise about subvention
but when the subvention finally comes nobody tells you they have received the
subventions. Those subventions also meant to take care of the salaries of
teachers. To enable the teachers have something substantial but you give them a
catechist salary of thirty-forty thousand francs?” He thundered.
He lamented that despite the small nature of
the salaries they could not still be paid for months so they could take care of
basics needs like house rents, hospital bills, and children’s need yet the
confessional school proprietors can be seen parading themselves in expensive
cars and still preaches generosity and magnanimity from pulpits.
“Let this be very clear to them. We have
started the fight. We are at the level of the labour delegate and we will take
it a step further if quick solutions are not sorted and when we are taking a
step further the public may be shocked to see what will come out of it be we of
the government sector have decided to align with those in the private sector to
fight and rectify this injustice.” The CATTU scribe Sema Valentine concluded.