By Nformi Sonde Kinsai
The three Northern Provinces (Adamawa, North and Far North) and the East Province of Cameroon would benefit most at the ongoing recruitment of some 5,525 primary school teachers.
Choices by applicants to work in some localities found in these provinces and described as Education Priority Zones, EPZ, would be a major factor to be considered in the selection process.
Basic Education Minister, Haman Adama, who made the declaration at a press briefing in Yaounde recently, said the quota to be allocated to each province would seriously take into account the needs of the EPZ.
She said the 5,525 contract teachers to be recruited during this third phase of the operation would be paid from the 2009 budget. 2000 of that figure would be teachers who have been working under the Parent Teachers Association, PTA, and 3525 would be holders of Teacher's Grade I Certificate who have never taught in a government primary school.
Adama insisted that certified copies of the professional diploma and all previous certificates such as GCE Ordinary and Advanced Levels that gave the teacher access to the training school as well as an attestations indicating that the applicant has served somewhere for at least five years, must be included in the application file.
A major innovation in the recruitment, the Minister said, would be based mainly on the choice of work place by the applicant. She called on holders of Teacher's Grade I Certificate to clearly indicate in their applications three schools in three provinces where they would want to serve and two of those schools must be found in the Education Priority Zones.
She advised the candidates to choose places of work in provinces where the needs are most and as such their chances for selection would equally be higher. Because of the specificity of the ongoing recruitment, the Minister promised that teams from the central and external services of her ministry would go to the field for a national sensitisation campaign.
Following a study in 2005, it was assessed that teacher deficiency in primary schools across the country stood at over 30,000 and since 2007, when the selection process was launched, 18,800 teachers have been recruited.
According to Haman Adama, 17 387 teachers are already receiving their regular salaries. She said the process has so far been smooth thanks to support from technical partners and financial donors such as the World Bank and the French Agency for Development.
The services of the Ministries of Employment and Professional Training, Public Service and Administrative Reforms, Finance and above all the Prime Ministry, in the process, were hailed. It is expected that by the time the operation ends in 2011, about 40,000 teachers must have been recruited.
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