Category: Literacy

South African medical students, who were evacuated from Ukraine, are now looking for ways to complete their studies. South African universities are discussing options for the students, some of whom are still shaken by the attacks they witnessed and are fearful for teachers and classmates left behind.

Concerned students have already launched a “Save Our Studies” campaign with the goal of helping about 50 repatriated medical students find spots at South African universities.

Twenty-five-year-old Mandisa Malindisa, a fourth-year medical student who was studying at Kharkiv National Medical University, is one of those who wants to get placed.

Her studies were interrupted when Russian forces entered Ukraine in late February.

She says that after a few days of hearing bombs in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine, she and five friends decided to flee by train to the Hungarian border.

The scene at the train station, she says, was pure chaos.

“Everybody’s losing their mind. Everybody’s trying to get on it. People have knives out. People are screaming. People are fighting. People are biting each other. You know, just trying to get onto this train. We looked, we were just watching. Cause we were like this is not our train. This train is going to Kyiv. This is not for us,” Malindisa recalled.

Eventually, a train that would take them to Lviv in western Ukraine did arrive, but much to their horror it stopped in Kyiv which they’d been hoping to avoid because it’s a high-risk area. They waited there for six hours.

“When we saw what Kyiv actually looks like, everything is just burning. There’s smoke. Everyone was just looking outside the window in just terror,” Malindisa said.

After 24 hours they reached Lviv and Malindisa made her way into Hungary, where she managed to book a flight home.

Sixth-year medical student Luphumlo Ntengu is also hoping to be able to continue his studies in South Africa. He was studying at Vinnytsia National Medical University in Ukraine. Safely home now in South Africa, he says he often thinks about those he left behind.

“Yes, I am very worried about my friends and my teacher you know. Ukraine has been my home for the past six years, they are like family to me. So, it’s so sad everything that is going on there. Right now, it feels like my own home that is being destroyed like that,” Ntengu said.

The chairperson of the South African Committee of Medical Deans, Professor Lionel Green-Thompson, confirmed that schools are discussing ways to help the repatriated students.

“Issues relating to students in the [sic] Ukraine have been brought to the attention of the South African Committee of Medical Deans. We have initiated conversations around this issue. The responses are complex and we continue to discuss these things,” Green-Thompson said.

But finding places may be problematic. The professor noted that many other South African students who returned due to the COVID-19 pandemic have also been seeking placement.

Source: Voice of America

Teachers in Cameroon are refusing to work, citing unpaid salaries, some dating back years. Government-led negotiations Tuesday failed to reach an agreement, putting the education of hundreds of thousands of children on hold.

Students at Government Bilingual High School Deido in the city of Douala sing that the government should pay their teachers so children have access to education.

In the song, the children say their dreams of becoming government ministers, doctors, journalists and entrepreneurs will be shattered if the government fails to listen to teachers.

Architect David Muluh has three children in the school. He says he visited the school on Wednesday to find out why teachers come to school but refuse to teach and “because of COVID, children have not been regular in school. If they continue losing [education] because their teachers are on strike, the children’s future is jeopardized. So, my plea is that the government should look into their problems.”

Muluh said school attendance in Cameroon has not been regular since the central African state reported its first cases of COVID-19 in March 2020.

He said during the Africa Football Cup of Nations, which Cameroon hosted last month, the government interrupted classes so students could fill empty football stadiums. He said children have no time to waste if they are to prepare for this year’s final examinations, expected in May.

Ten Cameroon teachers’ associations and unions last week announced a strike against what they call the disrespect of teachers by the government.

The teachers say the monthly salaries of primary school teachers should be increased from about $150 to at least $400. They are also asking the salaries of secondary school teachers to be increased from about $400 to at least $800.

Valentine Tameh, president of the Teachers’ Association of Cameroon, says his colleagues are particularly angry because the government has recruited more teachers than it can pay and now owes several years of unpaid salaries.

“You have teachers who have gone for 9 years, 10 years, without salaries and the government has kept promising and kept promising and promising and what is most irksome is that those who have money, go and give bribes and they have their arrears, they have their salaries.”

The sides negotiated Tuesday, and the government promised to look into the teachers’ grievances and pay the outstanding salaries of at least 17,000 teachers, though it did not say when.

A statement from Fouda Seraphin Magloire, secretary general of the prime minister’s office, said the teachers agreed to suspend the strike.

Geography instructor Appolinnaire Ze, a spokesman for the disgruntled teachers, says the teachers agreed to no such thing.

Ze says all teachers should go to school, but should not teach. He says school children should be calm and understand that teachers are going through a very difficult time. Ze says teachers should be humble but courageous to ask intimidating police and government officials if the police and government officials can also work for so many years without being paid.

The government denies that its officials and the police are trying to intimidate the teachers.

Source: Voice of America

Separatists in northwest Cameroon have abducted ten teachers at a school for children with disabilities. Moki Edwin Kindzeka reports from Yaounde.

In a video circulated on social media including WhatsApp in Cameroon, a group of ten teachers pleaded for their lives to armed anglophone separatists.

The nine women and one man said they teach at a school for disabled children in Ngomham, a neighborhood in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s North West region.

Cameroon’s military Friday confirmed the separatists this week abducted the teachers and a rebel spokesman claimed responsibility.

Capo Daniel, deputy defense chief of the rebel group Ambazonia Defense Forces, said they are punishing the teachers for not closing the government school.

“We have asked for help to create alternative educational institutions to give our children the right of education, including the handicap Ambazonia children,” he said. “But what we cannot allow is Cameroon setting up schools within Ambazonia territory and anybody that collaborates with the Cameroonian government will be considered a traitor.”

The rebels have been fighting in the western regions since 2017 to carve out an independent state they call “Ambazonia” from Cameroon’s French-speaking majority.

They’ve targeted government schools and offices; demanding authorities withdraw troops from the western regions.

Cameroon’s government condemned the abductions, calling it the latest separatist attack on education.

The Inclusive Government Bilingual Primary School Ngomham teaches scores of deaf, mute, and amputee children alongside several hundred others.

Teachers Association of Cameroon President Valentine Tameh said the children are too scared to go to class since their teachers were abducted.

“When a group of persons take upon themselves to continue harassing and molesting children and teachers with the effects that such unnecessary harassment causes, one can only say it is a sad thing, it is sorrowful,” she said. “We continue to emphasize that schools remain no-go areas and belligerents should stay clear of schools.”

Tameh said that since the separatist conflict began, rebels have killed or abducted at least 300 teachers in the English-speaking regions.

The conflict erupted after 2016, when anglophone teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority.

Cameroon’s military responded with a crackdown and separatists took up arms claiming to protect civilians.

Rights groups say both sides’ fighters have abused civilians during six-years of clashes.

The United Nations says the fighting has left 3,500 people dead, 700,000 displaced, and 750,000 children deprived of education.

Source: Voice of America