By Asonganyi Tazoacha*
"Vision-2035”
that has since become the mantra of the Cameroon government promises in the
area of health, education, science, and technology that “A national product
approval and certification system will be established.” Such products, one
would hope, include goods, services, and trained manpower. The system should
include an oversight on the production process. If well executed, the system would
prevent people from settling on the notion that “anything goes.” The system
should be based on special codes to reduce complexity and establish behavioral
expectations. It should not threaten the autonomy of society and the vibrancy
of the private sector. It should be robust enough to avoid being abused or
being used for strategic ends of groups or individuals, whoever they may be. To
increase their robustness, such codes should be constantly acted on through
plural democratic processes that not only put into question the established
“norms,” but also help to legitimate, concretize, or improve them.
When government policy is not well
thought out and appropriately communicated to society, public opinion is easily
dominated by general, speculative ideas. If policy that should be shared
through processes of participation and communication becomes subject to the
organizational logic of administrative power, this leads to confusion,
demobilization, distrust, and poor implementation.
The recent activities of the ministry of
Higher Education in relation to medical education in Cameroon were an effort at
fighting against an old error which the ministry was a willing accomplice in
perpetuating. The ministry gave authorization to persons to start medical
training institutions without clear rules of engagement; without enforceable codes
of conduct. So when the ministry started playing the catch-up game, it left the
impression of the desperation of someone trying to catch a train that was
already in motion. It also left the perception of theatrical actions that did
not seem to have been well thought out, and so lacked a well laid out plan. In
the process, it appeared to the public like the settling of personal or group
scores because it ended up with decisions that were not only extremely disruptive,
but were also certainly unsustainable.
Citizens
usually want well-being not only in body but also in mind; they want both
health and happiness. It is because of this that we are clamouring for
“development;” for “emergence.” To achieve these, they need to be powered
mainly by science, and by the things that science has already delivered to us,
and will surely deliver to our children, our grandchildren and beyond. This is
why all education systems of the 21st century have the “STEM” component
– Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – as their centerpiece.
Since Medicine that the ministry of Higher Education seems to be grappling with
is a well deserved component, we can say that it is “STEMM.” But medicine is just
part of a broad spectrum, and should not be allowed, as the ministry seems to
be trying to do, to distract attention from other important components of STEMM.
It is the place we give the STEMM
component in our education system that will permit our universities to become
knowledge centres of excellence, and generators of knowledge, entrepreneurship
and innovation - elements that will impact the economy and general policy
development. It is STEMM that should drive our university system and ensure
that the universities, private and public alike, produce highly skilled
manpower that is internationally competitive; manpower that is disciplined
because it pays attention to details induced by careful and rigorous training received
from highly motivated staff. Such skilled, disciplined and highly competitive
manpower is obviously not the “semi-skilled workers and second-line managers” our
universities are presently spinning out as holders of “professional” diplomas
and degrees.
The theatrics engaged by the minister of
Higher Education in the medical education sector should not distract attention
from the fact that our universities lack infrastructure and a friendly
environment to support teaching and research in all domains; that university
leadership is appointed, not based on merit but on nepotism, tribalism, and
cronyism; that university administration is tele-guided from a central control
point in Yaounde that has a penchant for leveling and cutting every institution
to size, thus, usually blocking the individual genius and human intelligence
that invariably make one country different from the other, one institution
different from the other, and one university different from the other.
If
“product approval and certification” means merging the public and private
sectors into one unit under the diktats of the government, it will obviously be
more destructive than constructive. In the pursuit of the goals of “approval
and certification,” the public and private spheres should co-exist and depend
on each other, but should operate as different units. The goodness in the
private sector is usually the strength of a sure factor – the human factor - which,
in the exercise of free choices and actions in an open society, can give birth
to competitive institutions that set the bar high on what universities can
achieve. Indeed, the goodness of the private sector is in the generation of competition,
which has always been the surest means to bring all human capacities to full
development. The private sector works on the imperative of efficiency that
rejects advancement by personal favour, tribalism, regionalism, corruption or
party affiliation that have become the hallmarks of the public sector in
Cameroon.
In what looks like a confused effort to
streamline medical education in Cameroon, government is being perceived as an
actor among other actors rather than as the provider of the framework that
makes possible the competitive operation of university institutions in the
public and private realms. The government is perceived as attempting to impose
itself on private actors, who, in reaction, seek to resist it because
government is believed to have lost its proper function by being reduced to an
object of social competition, and a prey to real interests. Such a posture denies
government the autonomy and responsibility of judgment in the formulation of just
and sustainable policies for medical education in Cameroon. The posture has led
to a lack of trust in what government is doing because it is believed that it
is tainted with personal, selfish considerations. Indeed, it has led to actors
looking for somebody to rescue them from the government!
National product approval and
certification is obviously
good for any country engaged in the great catch-up development race of the 21st
century. But it should be a system that encourages competition and excellence,
not blocks them. What we urgently need today is not the sort of confused
actions the ministry of Higher Education has engaged in the medical education
sector. We need an all-encompassing approach defined in a national education
forum that charts out strategies for an education system that can make Cameroon
a talented player in the biotechnology, technology, medical and other
professional and industrial sectors.
* Asonganyi Tazoacha is a professor,teaching at the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences,University of Yaounde 1,Cameroon
No comments:
Post a Comment