Visiting the brand-new University of Buea is like stepping back in time to the birth of one of the historically black universities in the American South. Despite seemingly impossible odds, there is an incredible determination to succeed. It is not difficult to see why: memories of the bloody student riots that led to the university鈥檚 birth are still fresh.
Buea鈥檚 campus, which lies close to the border with Nigeria in the lee of Mount Cameroon, marks a radical departure from Cameroon鈥檚 old-style system of higher education. In a country where academia and industry inhabit separate worlds, it offers subjects such as chemical engineering and medical laboratory technology 鈥� with placements in local companies as part of the course. And in a society where, until recently, a married woman needed her husband鈥檚 permission to travel abroad, Buea offers degree courses in women鈥檚 studies. The university鈥檚 motto 鈥� 鈥淭he Place to Be鈥� 鈥� signals its ambitions.
Cameroon entered the 1990s with just one university to its name, and that establishment was not a pretty sight. The University of Yaound茅, according to its former vice-chancellor Jacob Ngu, was 鈥渢he worst possible case study in bad management鈥�. Ngu, still a professor of medicine at the university, says that obsessive centralisation tied the hands of staff with innovative ideas and financial accountability was zero. Students complained of lecturers who regularly gave higher marks to those who bought the course pamphlets they had written. A campus that had been designed to house just 5000 was packed to the rafters with almost 40 000 students. And thanks to an astronomical drop-out rate, it took an average investment of 18 years鈥� worth of lectures to turn out each graduate.
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Something had to give. And in 1991 it did, when many of the students took to the streets to seek reform. After violent clashes with the security forces (see 鈥淪tudent life 鈥� and death鈥�), they got what they wanted. The University of Yaound茅 has now been split into two, and four new universities have been formed in the provincial capitals of Buea, Dschang, Douala and Ngaound茅r茅. Of the four, Buea is already proving the most popular, even though it is the only one to operate a strict policy of selective entry based on exam results.
Buea鈥檚 popularity is partly explained by the fact that it is the only English-speaking university in a country which, although officially bilingual, has always been dominated by its Francophone majority. Before it opened, many Anglophone families would scrimp and save to send their children to university in Nigeria. Their dislike of the French-speaking University of Yaound茅 was not based on language alone: they had also lost patience with the French-style education system. The emphasis of the French system, claims Ngu, 鈥渋s acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowledge鈥� 鈥� an approach that he says is too impractical for Cameroon. 鈥淵ou need to have more efficiency in a developing country.鈥� Buea has modelled itself instead on the more utilitarian universities of Britain and North America.
But Buea has one big problem: money, or rather the lack of it. When the government agreed to decentralise Cameroon鈥檚 higher education system, the idea was that the new universities would be funded without 鈥渘ew鈥� money. The cash would instead be found by ending the generous allowances to students that were consuming some 65 per cent of the University of Yaound茅鈥檚 budget, turning it into little more than a welfare programme for young Cameroonians. The plan sounded very plausible, says Beban Sammy Chumbow, Buea鈥檚 deputy vice-chancellor, but that was before Cameroon鈥檚 economy 鈥� until recently one of the healthiest in Africa 鈥� went off the rails. 鈥淭he money just disappeared,鈥� he says.
Today, Buea exists on a shoestring. 鈥淲e are financing practically no research at all,鈥� says Dorothy Njeuma, Buea鈥檚 vice-chancellor. Luckily, most of the buildings were built with foreign aid in the 1980s, before the government abandoned an earlier plan to decentralise higher education. But by this year, the university still had no library and its science laboratories were only half built.
Everyone and anyone is being roped in to help with fund-raising. Students鈥� families have already agreed to contribute 20 000 CFA francs (about 拢25) each. In this atmosphere of survival against the odds, the echoes of the American South are louder than ever. There is even a similar religious undercurrent. The Presbyterian church is big in Buea, and the university is planning to award a prize for its most morally upstanding student.
Certainly, few students can be accused of the sin of sloth. With the science block scheduled for completion only in time for the new academic year, many students this year gave up their summer to take their practical classes in local grammar schools. 鈥淲e do not intend to give them degrees without lab experience,鈥� says Samuel Fanso-Free, head of chemistry.
Foreign aid would help, but the university is part of the public sector, so it is tarred with the same brush as Cameroon鈥檚 internationally unpopular government. Only limited sums have come in. The biggest disappointment is that Britain, former ruler of the Anglophone zone, has offered little more than friendly advice. 鈥淭he people feel abandoned by their former mentors,鈥� says Chumbow.
If anything, however, these disappointments are strengthening the resolve of Buea鈥檚 staff and students: late last year, their university 鈥渞oad show鈥� raised some 拢6000. The clamour in Anglophone Cameroon for an English-speaking university goes back decades, says Njeuma. Now that goal has been realised, Anglophone Cameroonians are not going to let it slip away without a fight.
Student life 鈥� and death
PETER Tabu sums up his memories of his first year at university with just one word: 鈥渇ear鈥�. Tabu is now a newspaper journalist but in the spring of 1991, he was studying English at the University of Yaound茅 鈥� and that set him in direct conflict with the government and its gendarmes.
At the time, students all over West Africa were agitating for democracy and the reform of the universities. When Cameroon鈥檚 students marched to demand a decentralised university system, the government hit back. The gendarmes focused on an informal body set up by the students, called the Parliament. It was headed by a student called Senfo Tokam and his two deputies 鈥� nicknamed Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell after the heores of another, more famous conflict of the day. The 4000-strong Parliament met each evening at 6pm in the student quarter, Bonamoussadi. Government agents would identify militants so that they could be picked up from their homes. 鈥淵ou didn鈥檛 know who was a government spy and who was a true student,鈥� says Tabu. Many detainees were tortured. 鈥淪tudents were shaved with broken bottles and then they were beaten,鈥� says Tabu. Those identified by the students as spies were treated equally brutally 鈥� at least one was burnt to death.
By mid-May, the gendarmes had begun to suppress the Parliament. The students鈥� solution was to meet at 9pm, after the gendarmes had dispersed for the evening. On the fourth night, as the students gathered, Bonamoussadi鈥檚 electricity was cut, plunging the area into darkness. Then the gendarmes charged. In the resulting panic, the students stampeded. 鈥淭he newspapers reported that some students had died,鈥� says Tabu. The next day, Tabu and his friends visited the scene, and found the ground spotted with blood. 鈥淲e saw a thousand shoes.鈥�
Many students fled Yaound茅, while the government, realising that public opinion backed the students, set up a committee to investigate the incident. Amid accusations of a whitewash, this committee later reported that no students had died. And faced with expulsion if they did not return, most students were back in their lecture rooms by mid-June. But their call for a decentralised system was soon quietly accepted. (see Graph)
