This comes after a series of misdeeds recorded in secondary institutions of learning. The writer thinks the reinstitution of religious education and morals in our schools will help graduate students with knowledge in the head and morality in the heart. He also suggests the faculty of theology be created in Higher Teacher Training Colleges
Open Letter to Professor Nalova Lyonga Pauline, Minister of Secondary Education.
Dear Professor. It is with great sympathy and a heart filled with tears, that I write to you this day. Amongst others, my aim of writing is to express my condolence to the secondary education family. My condolence it should be recalled, goes in line with that of any cameroonian of goodwill. My special regards to the family of late Tchakounte. Sit transit Gloria mundi the Latin amateur will say. But in more profound terms we say “Requiem eternam Dona eis domine, et lux pepetua, luceat eis”. It would be important dear Minister Lyonga, at the prologomenon of my letter, to condemn these acts of wantom vandalism in our schools. Dear minister, if we go down memory lane, we vividly recall that last year, you were in G.H.S. Deido in Douala, to witness the aftermath of shameful macabre incident, in which a student stabbed another student with the aid of a Dane weapon. Today we see you in Nkolbison asking how and why a form three student could stab a fellow teacher to death. Prof: tomorrow you will be certainly going to Obala, not for another death, but to see the deformed finger of a fellow student chopped off by another. I think enough is enough. Cameroon does not deserve this dear professor Nalova. Enough is enough in our schools.
Professor, where is God in our public schools? Professor Nalova, where have you kept moral education and religious studies? You Prof Nalova, you who studied at the Queen of the Holy Rosary Okoyong Mamfe, you like most of our leaders, who passed through Saint Joseph College SASSE, St Bedes Ashing Kom, seat of Wisdom Fontem, Sacred heart Mankon, Saint Augustin Bamkikai, BHS Mankon, J.M.B.C ndu, Saker Baptist College Limbe just to name but these, where have you kept God dear minister Nalova? Does religious studies and moral education mean anything again to you? What about the prayers, the songs, the devotions and the charitable works you all carried out in the schools? “has God left the schools” can we conclude that God does not fight for our public schools again? Do our children have any fear of the Lord again? How on Earth, can a student raise a hand against a teacher? God has certainly left the schools.
Professor, don’t we say in Cameroon that you cannot be admitted to lower sixth with 3 papers and religious studies? Professor Nalova. Why have you pushed God out of the schools? Give God his place. Professor, do you know Saint Joseph Calasanz? He is the patron Saint of all Christian schools. He said this in the 16th century ” if children are brought up in piety and the fear of the Lord, it is sure that their future is assured”. Professor, is there piety and the fear of the Lord in our schools? Morality has kicked the bucket, no time for acts of piety. Professor, ” let God arise and let his enemies discard”. Give God his place in our schools. Restore religious studies and moral instructions in it’s right place in our schools. We shall never hear of these things that make us sad.
Professor, the Bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Bamenda wrote an open Letter to the prime minister in 2015. In this letter, they exposed at length, the importance of moral education and the reinstitution of religious studies as a corner Stone in our educational system. Dear minister, have you read that letter? It would be important to get a copy and to listen to the fathers of the church. It is high time we give God his place and save Cameroon from further degradation.
Dear professor, history will write your name in bold, if you reconsider Religious studies and moral education as a corner Stone in the integral formation of our kids. History will remember you if you lobby or introduce the creation of the faculty of theology in ENS Bambili, ENS Maroua and HENS yaounde, where young men and women will be schooled in the things of God and later on pass them on to the children.
Professor Nalova, do you know that we train intellectuals who are filled in the head and empty in the heart
in CUSS, ENAM, ENS and other professional schools? When a doctor records 30 abortions 3 years after his graduation from CUSS, simply because Moral education and religious studies were not any of his businesses, is that not a filled head and an empty heart? If a civil administrator from ENAM embezzles 90% of public funds and invests 10 percent, is that not a full head and empty heart? Dear minister, Moral education and Religious studies must regain it’s place in our schools.
Finally, it would be of an incommensurate dishonesty to forget all the important reforms carried out already by the Ministry of Secondary Education, to improve on security in our schools. However, much needs to be done, especially the very act of giving God his place in the educational system of Cameroon. I strongly condemn these violent acts in our schools, I pray God protects our teachers and students.
Elad Terence.
