generationsacrifiées

By Roger Kaffo Fokou et Kamdem Kamdem Martin, Translated from French by Ritha Kamdem, Masters in translation, ASTI Buéa. (Yaoundé April 2, 2013) 

Development is when there is growth and improvement of what already exists in a given place, not what is imported. That is what some people call progress. Thus, a company is said to experience development when its production, that is, when its competence grows in quality and quantity. A country develops when its production capacity is diversified and its products undergo such growth that the living standards of its citizens follow the same upward trend at the levels of income, health coverage and social security in general. Because this growth is the result of local know-how rather than that of the importation of development gadgets, every sustainable development is related to the quality of education received by the population.

Our countries vouched for development from the time they severed themselves from colonialism. Over 50 years of stagnation now, unemployment, general poverty and pressure from the growing generation have paved the road to social violence and political instability in our communities. Thus, the necessity to emerge from under development has become a major challenge for politicians. This affirmed political challenge might just be a demagogic stake if the politician is not taken for his word by the main beneficiaries of an eventual emergence from under development. And who is the main beneficiary if not the people? Yet, the majority of the population is made up of workers. If every Cameroonian worker is given the means of increasing his/her production that is, to produce in quantity and quality, the battle for emergence is certain. That is why workers and their organisations, trade unions, are unquestionably at the heart of development issues. We therefore understand why SNAES has decided to set the reflection of its 6th Ordinary Congress under the theme "Trade Unionism in the face of Development".

This presentation which is just an introduction to a deeper and vaster reflection, shall examine the conditions for development, in order to show how the actions of trade unions are a key parameter. It will certainly be easier to demonstrate that teacher trade unions have an important role in the fight for development and that, if they do not exist, it is high time we create them.

 I. Essential Parameters for Development: Import less and Export more 

Importing is above all, being consumers. Importing is synonymous to buying from abroad thus, exporting national currencies.  Importing is settling in a consumer society without any production, developing a certain number of flaws. The greatest of these flaws being the love for easy life:  as if it were a magical operation, roads, motorways, ready-made houses and the latest vehicles are imported and along with these visible signs of development comes the illusion of development, so long as you have the means to afford them. But since these means are mostly exhaustible and that they can only be maintained and renewed by acting on the payment balance, assuring the equilibrium of commercial balance and if need be, the surplus and not the deficit, there comes a time when people are obliged to get into debt in order to ensure consumption, especially if the latter is imported. The inevitable consequences of a consumer-base society which does not produce include, in the long run, debt, poverty and under development.

Exporting is synonymous to production and not only producing, but producing in quantity and quality. Production should be in sufficient quantities in order to ensure ones needs and use the surplus for exportation sales. However, this surplus can only be exported if it can beat the competition by ensuring the price-quality ratio. Therefore, it is not enough to produce in quantity just to be able to sell but production should equally be of good quality, thereby facing the challenges of competition.

By importing, we do not only export our national riches, we equally export national jobs thereby favouring national unemployment. Importing is giving employments to foreign citizens while keeping unemployment for the local workforce: thus delocalizing jobs. Importing is giving the foreign workers the means to develop their competences and saving for the local citizens idleness which we know leads to boredom, vice and a state of want.

We can be convinced of that by noticing that in the 60s, Asian dragons were at the same level of development or under development as many African countries as we like to emphasise. While Africans chose to import, Asians made the choice of producing. They taught their people how to "fish themselves" and today, we can all attest to the outcome.

These choices are mostly political, you would be told. What do they have to do with trade unions? Contrary to public opinion, trade unions have everything to do with it.

II. Trade unions are key actors in elaborating economic policies

Historically, each time a society had the chance to improve its level of development; it was preceded by the development of the producing class. Developing ones producing class is first of all, liberating it, granting it a greater degree of voluntary involvement in the production and consumption process.

In ancient Greece, the classical era of Solon (VII-VI centuries B.C.) and Pericles (V century B.C.), was marked by the decline of slavery and serfdom and the development of an urban civilisation that valorised liberal activities and trade. Coming out of an alienated workmanship for a more liberal and better remunerating workmanship, the production force stepped up its productivity and enriched itself while enriching the country. 

In the mid XIX century in the United States, the necessity to increase industrial production – increase production in quantity and quality – in contrast to the will of the Southern States of the Union to maintain a slave workforce led to the American Civil War. The victory of the Union States and the abolition of slavery gave the production machine a labour force that better suited its needs. The upward trend of production from the end of the XIX century to the mid XX century is, as such, inseparable from the trade union's ground gaining.

As can be seen in the Encarta encyclopaedia on the exponential growth witnessed during this period in the West, known as the 30 Glorious Years, " the golden age of the after-war period, was full of employment, investments or a great accumulation of capital, factories functioning at their maximum capacities and high profitability for companies. Factors other than Taylorism and mass production are accountable for such success. The first being trade unionism, a key factor for social relations in companies and the second being a welfare state, that guaranteed everyone a certain standard of living such that the inactive population (the retired, unemployed, etc), could still consume".

In Africa today, in a context where most of the productive apparatus is extroverted, only the trade unions power can enable States to negotiate juicy deals with investors such that an acceptable fraction of the wealth produced in the country remains within. You just have to think that, in France, 56.6% of the wealth produced yearly gets into public expenses whereas in Cameroon, the said fraction barely hits 16.9%. The Marikana incidents in South Africa between major mining companies and trade unions enabled a radical raise of the wages of South African miners and as such, injected a larger quantity of wealth into the South African economy, whose multiplying effect is undoubtedly a key factor to the actual development of this country.

Since the Marikana incidents, no South African government can henceforth elaborate the country's economic policy without considering the social factor, negotiate with employers without considering the workers and by contributing in enriching the working citizen, the government is simply enriching the country.

This seemingly easy equation only produces the expected results in a situation where workers and their trade unions are more than just consumers. This is the reason why Fordism could only emerge and be accepted by being based on arguments of Taylorism. So, if production is the key to development, then what we should be looking for is the key to production itself. It is at this stage that teachers and their trade unions intervene.

III. Teachers and their Trade Unions at the Centre of the Quantity and Quality Production Process

Producing is above all, transforming ideas into goods and services. Goods can be material or immaterial that is, cultural. The more intelligence put into the production of a good, the greater the market value of the said good. Thus, the first production factory is that which trains in know-how. That is where the worker learns the necessary competences needed to continuously integrate more intelligence and as such, greater value to his/her production, to conceive new types of goods and improve the productivity of these goods. So, education is fundamentally the key to production, and indirectly a key to development.

Thus, if education is the key to development, it becomes a must to primarily develop this sector, which in turn will stimulate development. How can we then get workers of the educational sector to ensure better productivity, how do we instil in them the love for work, especially the love for a job well done? In short, how do we instil true professionalism in them?

They have to participate in every production stage of knowledge, self-management skills and know-how. For this to be possible, the said process has to be democratised. And what type of democracy would that be?  It is obvious that a direct democracy is impossible in today's labour world as it is in a political society. In order to avoid the stumbling block of direct democracy in the political world, representative democracy and political parties were invented. In the labour world, the representative voice for workers is the trade union.

It is therefore through associations in which they are identified and who defend their interests; trade unions, that teachers will be better able to fully participate in the production stages of the various types of competences, prior to any real ambition of development. Trade unions have to be strong in order to manage their members, canalise the underlying energy in each of them for a better productivity, necessary for development.

The experience of our country since 1993 with regards to labour clearly shows what should not be done if we want results that can lead to development. Drastic salary cuts, followed by devaluation were greatly favoured by the lack of organisation in the labour industry. SNAES had barely been established and did its very best to save what could still be redeemed but did not have the means to face the State as a respected interlocutor. The State standing alone, had then engaged itself in a sort of forward escape. The quality of teachings since then has dwindled and so have the results to the various official examinations. Very few teachers today do the job which is required of them. Some of them have fled the ministries in charge of educational matters or simply the country, while others who decided to stay back home, put in less effort every day, resulting in a drop of the productivity of intelligence to a deplorable level.  Cameroon, which was once a reference in education on the continent has today, lost its place. Our universities are not even listed amongst the best African universities whereas, these African universities are not even amongst the best worldwide.

A better organisation of workers between1990-2000 could have enabled the adoption of negotiated solutions that would have been better and would have avoided the disaster our country has been suffering from for some decades now, at the level of human resource training. This reminds me of this school principal from Bamenda, of blessed memory, who reacted to his colleague's questions at a sectorial meeting in the following words: "if you want good results at official exams, setup a section of SNAES in your school, for those of you who do not have one yet as, I can assure you that they are the driving force in my school".  Today, the attempted dialogue between the State and trade unions has appeased the then tensed social climate, although the awaited results from the employer still very much leave to be desired. 

In conclusion: what is the place of teacher trade unions in the educational reform process, today and in future? 

Today, much is said about the operation to become an emerging country by 2035. No miracle is possible except education and training are developed. The National forum on the policy adopted for books, school manuals and didactic material took place ending December 2012: Trade unions were invited but as stooges. The outcome of this forum did not even enable the State of Cameroon to conform to a UNESCO recommendation, already dating from October 20, 2005; the Convention for the Defence and the Promotion of Diversity in Cultural, Artistic and Linguistic Expressions, which resulted in the ousting of the book, School Manual and Didactic Materials from the list of sold objects, that are not State subsidized. The National Forum on Education is being setup in the same line: Trade unions will be invited once more, just for the sake of it, at the detriment of a true development policy.

Capital questions are being raised, requesting urgent solutions that a forum like this one should be able to bring. What about development for technical education in Cameroon? How far have we gone with the policy for the setting up of bilingual technical schools across the country, since bilingualism is everyday spreading all over the country? Let us take for instance, an Anglophone pupil in the Far North Region, who has a call for technical education. Will this student need to relocate to the North West or South West Regions because the said schools in their region only give lessons in French?

 What about the francophone pupil in the North West Region: is he obliged to further his studies in general education because the schools in his region only teach in English? And what about the agricultural high schools that are being established, will lessons be given out in English or French? These questions and many more are of great concern to our country, all its citizens but particularly, the professionals of education and their organisations. The quality of the results obtained will depend on the degree of involvement of these organisations in the elaboration, deliberation, adoption and implementation of the solutions to these issues. Education and training are major challenges at the centre of the development issue. Everybody needs to be involved for these problems to be solved and education workers through their organisations, independently and sometimes baring dissident opinions but always committed, can bring in a lot to the process.