By Martin Jumbam
First carried by Cameroon Tribune of Friday, July 22, 1988.
On Thursday June 30, 1988, the French edition of Cameroon Tribune tackled what is fast becoming to some people a sensitive, heart-breaking topic of conversation these days in this country: retirement from the civil service. What I found most interesting was the near-frantic reaction from the University of Yaoundé where age seems to have caught some members of the teaching staff completely off-guard.
That must be the reason for that free lecture on the “wisdom” of not retiring University professors which we heard from that seat of wisdom the other day. We were told how old professors are dripping with experience which should be harnessed and not allowed to rot with the owners in retirement. We heard of research and the value of researchers after their 55th birthday, etc etc.
That is pure nonsense, of course. The only reasonable voice among those who expressed an opinion on that issue was that of Dr. Ambroise Kom, a dynamic University lecturer whose name rings with much credibility in international literary circles.
His view that age ought not to be the only determining factor of one’s position at the University made more sense to me than the panicky predictions of doom for the University we heard from the other members of its teaching staff. His argument was that anyone teaching at the University - and may we also add, at any other higher institute of learning in this country? - and who fails to abide by that often fright-fraught adage of the Americans, “publish or perish,” should be retired long before their 55th birthday.
I know that if such a criterion had been applied at the University of Yaoundé, half of all those who are now being retired on the basis of old age, would have long been thrown out for incompetence. I don’t know what’s happening at the University of Yaoundé these days, but in my undergraduate years there a little over ten years ago, many members of the teaching staff were notorious for skipping classes.
It was common knowledge among students that once they received tenure and their positions were thus consolidated, many of those professors and lecturers hardly ever showed up for classes. They were out in town either lecturing part-time in institutions other than the University (e.g. ENS, ENAM, EMIAC, etc), or in Ministries fighting to occupy two or three posts at once. Even when they did manage to show up in class, you heard nothing new from them. They all seemed to rely on age-crusted notes from dog-eared exercise books, dating back presumably to their own undergraduate days abroad decades before.
The situation has perhaps, and hopefully, changed for the better these days. But, whatever the case, I’m convinced that if you were to ask President Paul Biya who it is he had in mind when he said that no one should consider retirement as punishment but rather as a well deserved rest period after years of fruitful service to the nation, he would no doubt tell you that he was referring to all Cameroonians – including university professors and lecturers. Then, why all the fuss at the university over retirement, for crying out loud!?
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