From Classroom to Classroom: Tubah/Bafut MP drums right to quality education in CCAST Bambili

Agho Oliver Bamenjeu, Member of Parliament for the Tubah/Bafut constituency in Mezam Division of the North West Region of Cameroon, who recently bagged home a Masters degree in flying colours from a top-notch Japanese University, has been communioning and robbing shoulders with students of the Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology, CCAST Bambili, one of West Cameroon's foremost and equally top-notch secondary schools created immediately after the independence and reunification of the two Cameroons in 1961.

As the new apostle of the theory of the bottom-up approach to participatory development (which was the core of his two year-study in Japan), Hon. Agho Oliver decided to go down field and get the realities of the challenges and obstacles staff and students of CCAST Bambili face on a daily basis in an attempt to access their fundamental right to quality education.

Guided by the Principal, Mr. Formukom Christopher, the MP moved from classroom to Classroom and from one deplorable science lab to another.

During the visit, the MP, accompanied by the Divisional Officer for Tubah and the Regional Councilor for that constituency, saw for himself the dilapidated nature of not only the buildings and science laboratories (constructed and lastly refurbished in 1972), but also absence of scientific blackboards.

The situation was the more deplorable as in all the classes the MP and his entourage visited, students complained of the acute shortage of benches. A situation that usually forced over five students to be crammed into a bench, while others who could not afford the luxury of accessing a bench barely stand up to receive lectures and copy 📝notes. Under such circumstances, students complained they find enormous challenges accessing their rights to quality education and that such obstacles directly affect their performance.

In order to begin assuaging the deplorable situation, Hon. Agho Oliver did an on-the-spot donation of money for the procurement of four of the 10 scientific blackboards, while promising to complete the rest before the close of the year. In response to the students direct plea for benches, he promised donating 200 benches before December and more importantly, scholarships to brilliant students wishing to further their studies.

Given the dilapidated nature of the buildings in the CCAST Complex, the Tubah/Bafut member of Parliament promised to urgently take up the matter with Professor Nalova Lyonga, Secondary Education Minister and herself a graduate of the 1968 batch of CCAST Bambili.

It should be recalled that CCAST Bambili has since inception produced great minds for Cameroon, including former Prime Minister, Yang Philemon, and five sitting ministers, viz, H.E Nalova Lyonga, H.E Felix Mbayu, H.E Fuh Calistus Gentry, H.E Paul Tasong, and H.E Elong Paul Che. 

From inception, the Cameroon College of Science and Technology, CCAST Bambili, was intended to be a university institute of arts, science and technology, even though it has remained a secondary school. The school currently has a student population of over 1500, and counting....