Editor: Viv Edwards (University of Reading, UK)
|
Volume: 17 Number: 6 Page: 408–420
|
|
|
|
|
English in Francophone Elementary Grades in Cameroon
|
|
Jean-Paul Kouega
|
|
Since Reunification of French Cameroon and British Cameroons in 1961, the country has adopted French and English as its joint official languages and recommended the promotion of bilingualism in these two
foreign languages in official domains. This paper focuses on the primary school level in the francophone sub system of education and examines the various measures that successive governments have taken.
The first two measures failed to bear fruit, for various reasons including insufficient teachers and lack of teaching materials. The most recent measure still to be implemented makes the teaching of the
second official language a compulsory subject in all primary school classes and a subject in both the First School Leaving Certificate and the Certificat d'Etudes Primaires (CEP), its French equivalent.
This decision seems to have been taken hastily, as the problems of staff and materials are still not resolved. The position of the present researcher is that, as the Government is at present better prepared
to provide teaching in one or other of the two official languages, it should make some French-medium and some English-medium schools available in as many localities as possible, and give parents the choice
of which system they want for their children.
© Multilingual Matters 2003
Full text PDF
|
