Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - English

Save Our Rural Areas! Part .2

 In the first part of our reflection we saw why we need to save ruaral areas from collapse.In this second part, we look at how  save rural areas.

THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

Most young graduates and even not so educated youths migrate to towns because agriculture is portrayed by the Cameroonian educational system as being “Demeaning”.When the people who are presented to young pupils and students as successful are only those who own 50 Hummers, 20 Mansions, 10 wifes, 15 girl friends, and 20 bank accounts somewhere in Europe, and are above all civil servants, it is but normal that these youths especially those who think they are far off from being like the models presented by society to want to be civil servants, embezzle, and live like their models.The educational system must be restructured to present more favourable image of  the agro industry to young students and pupils

ENCOURAGE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
Cameroonians from the Cameroon Development Corporation(CDC) in the 1960s were sent to Malaysia to teach Malaysians how to plant  oil palms, today Malaysia is the first producer of palm oil in the world while Cameroon’s production of palm oil has even declined. An agricultural research policy especially as concerns the intergration of ICTs in farming will do much good to Cameroonian youths.

MAKE RURAL AREAS A PRIORITY

Rural areas are the most poverty stricken, have a high illiteracy and HIV/AIDS prevalent rate, are the most inhabited, and posses the great untapped development potentials. This is all based on my conviction that, for a successful and timely achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), many more rural area dwellers in Cameroon, Africa and the  world need to be educated on the fundamental role they can play for a participative  achievement of these goals.

Creating awareness on MDGs and advocacy for greater youth involvement in community development is the aim of one of the programs that the Education for Development Foundation of Cameroon is implementing. Knowledge of international trade mechanisms, financial (fiscal and monetary) tools, and development issues is vital if  this project and others is to have a far-reaching and long lasting impact .

The famous PDDAA of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development(NEPAD) SIGNED BY  Cameroon alongside other African countires in Maputo in 2003 requires that  atleast 10 percent of the budget of  counties be allocated to the Agricultural sector. This in a way mean that particular attention is to be given to areas in whch agriculture is the main activity. But in Cameroon less than 3 percent of its budget is allocated to agriculture. If this trend continuous, it is but eveident that the nose-dive of agricultural production will continue and rural areas will die.

MAKE YOUTHS THE BACKBONE OF DEVELOPMENT
The desire for a ore comfortable and decnt live are amongst the highest push factors for rural exodus. If this problem which has led to the abandonment of rural areas by youths to their ageing and dieing parents and weak tender ones and thus aggravating the the production of agricultural products is to be solved ,
electricity must be extended all rural areas to enable youths  enjoy the facilities that requires the availability of electricity  such as computers, phones(Chargiing of batteries), and facilitate the transformation of food crops other value adding activities
tar raods,
Precipitate the coming  of and vulgarize  the use of ICT tools like  computers, phones etc which will help young farmers to  better plan and manage their  their agricultural cycle, their harvests as concerns planting, harvesting, transformation , and distribution of its output

extend network coverage of these areas.This will facilitate training and acquisition of knowledge on:
-Mnagaement of produce
-Planting(efficient) techniques
-New inventions in the agricultural domain
-Collaboration among farmers, youths in rural areas with those in towns or even those outside the country
-The marketing of produce
-The organization of farmers,youths etc into networks to acheve a common goal.This facilitated by modern communication channels

SAVE OUR RURAL AREAS! Part 1

A desolate and long abandoned place with a health unit lacking  even the most basic of  of all drugs and equipment, a market square with the number of shades  in use on a typical market  day far outnumbering  the number in use with many in ruins –abandoned by youths for greener pastures in town and a population  living in conditions that violate their basic human rights. This is the picture  I have since returning from  a trip to my village  after more than 10 decades of absence 2 years ago. with little or no hope  of ever knowing the grandeur it had known before and slowly but surely dieing  dieing


Bafmeng( my village) might be one of the  most economically backward  and socially challenged  villages in Cameroon, it is far from  being the worst-there are communities in a worst shape compared to this village.


But things in my village have not always  been so.When I visited Bafmeng during my summer holidays in 1998, the picture of desolation, abandonment, and seeming hopelessness  described above, was far-fetched  because economic activities-mostly carried out by youths –were booming and all shades in the market occupied. Community clean-up campaigns and other socio-cultural  activities  were the order of the day.But that was then!


The effects of the economic crisis which hit Cameroon in the early 90s were surely still to be felt in Bafmeng  up to the year 2000 when the village felt a pinch of the crisis.
this is after Cameroon had implemented its austerity measures and the Structural Adjustment Plans imposed  by the world bank  and and the International Monetary fund.The neglect of rural areas led to the impoverishment  of rural areas  and their inhabitants.This is were it all began.


The neglect of rural areas and a lack of strategies  to develop and open up these areas which are of strategic importance to a country like Cameroon which still has about half its population  living in these areas greatly contributed to the declining food production,unregulated and uncontrolled urbanization, high crime wave in cities, pollution, prostitution,early marriages, unregulated births, increasing  number of school drop outs, and child child trafficking which is so rampant in Cameroon.

Our rural areas are in prolonged comma from which they must be rescued so as not to die.They are agonising and slowly dieing without anybody raising even the smallest finger and need the care attention and treatment required to bring them back to their flamboyant and vibrant youthfulness of the  pre-independence era.



But how can this be done?, one may ask. Saving rural areas from their agony requires more than just good intentions on the part of policy and citizens.It requires well thought and carefully designed policies which not only aims at improving the life of rural area dwellers but  making these areas attractive. This could be done only if the greatest cause of rural area decline is tackled-rural exodus.

51.3 percent of Cameroonian live town while 49.7 percent  of which 43.5 percent are of ages below  15 and 51 percent of rural area dwellers are women. This is the trend in most developing countries  especially since independence where youths  young men and women with dreams of  living more decent and satisfying lives than their parents, and aspirations of living in free and modern world are pushed to the move to the cities where they think all their dreams and aspirations will be met. But when this dreams are shattered by the lack of opportunities in town they  resort to drug abuse, alcohoolism,crime and prostitution.


Rural exodus, rather than cosmetic changes  made by Cameroon’s government by creating more schools and universities in town to cater for the influx of people from rural areas  is thus the problem to be solved if rural areas are to be revamped  and agricultural production increased to meet the current shortage  which  in February 2008 led to riots and unrest in the country by youths.

The solution to rural exodus is simply turning its push factors into pull factors for rural areas so that we can get an urban-exodus. These factors will be examined in the second part of this reflection.

Our Educational System: the Cause of our troubles?

                                 

   American educationist and activist T.Booker Washington once declared that “No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.” This educationist’s declaration urges one to take a closer look at the type of education that is given to learners in all countries of our world as this determines the perception a people would have of life, work, success and other crucial social issues. An educational system can therefore be regarded as the pillar upon which every country’s survival rests.

In searching for a solution to a problem/problems faced by any individual, community or nation, there is nothing as misleading as tackling not the source of the problem but its effects It is undeniably true from experience and observation that most often solutions to Africa’s problems and challenges have been sort using not only the wrong means, but above all in the wrong places. Conscious of the fact that a country’s educational system is its pillar, there is therefore no doubt as to the fact that any country’s progress or development is highly dependent on the quality and solidity of its educational system. It is evident therefore that, concerning Africa’s development, despite the fact that so much has been said and so many accusing fingers pointed, most have been pointed to the wrong direction as so many specialist and analyst have failed to acknowledge that Africa’s development has been greatly retarded more by its educational systems than its economic policies and practices.

 “A nation can only progress if its people stop thinking and reason instead”, once said a great mind. It is evident from this declaration that there exist two types of educational systems namely: That which inculcates the thinking culture in learners and that which inculcates the reasoning culture in learners. But what differentiates the former educational system from the latter? One may be tempted to ask. To think is to imagine, understand, believe and anticipate something. In fact it is the ability to use the mind to consider ideas and make judgments. The educational system of most African countries in general and Cameroon  in particular (though not the worst in the world) falls in this category as over the years, they  stressed more on learners obtaining certificates than acquiring knowledge, skills and competence with the effect been the inability of learners to conceive and develop ideas. This educational system not only alienates the learner but  makes him/her not less than a robot; unable to act on its own except instructed. 

Reason on the other hand is said to be the power of being able to think in a logical and rational manner. Reason could also be said to be the ability to think logically, regarded as the basis of knowledge, distinct from experience or emotions. Therefore to reason is to think coherently and clearly. An educational system in which every promotion is based on merit, where been brilliant is not a crime, and success not synonymous to owning buildings, cars, money and other tools generally used to oppress, suppress, and dominate others is one that inculcates the reasoning culture in learners.

 

  From the above analysis, it is crystal clear that an educational system that gives the learner a wrong perception of  the essence of life and citizenship, is worst than  building a mansion upon sand as the quality of education received by the people is what makes a great nation. An educational system worthy of the name must therefore be that which makes the learner not a spectator and perpetual complainer but an actor who instead of cursing the darkness all the time, prefers to light a candle.

  The panacea for our country’s and Africa’s developmental problems therefore from all observations lie in the restructuring; rethinking and reasoning of the type, quality and manner of inculcating knowledge in learners. The best educational system in this regard is that in which  T.Booker Washington says “The students themselves would be taught to see not only utility in labour, but beauty and dignity; would be taught, in fact, how to lift labour up from mere drudgery and toil, and would learn to love work for its own sake”