Tameh Valentine, President of The Teachers Association of Cameroon (TAC) has called for more prominence in the powers exerted by Regional Education authorities in the the personnel management of teachers.
“In the past, redeployment and discipline were tools used locally to ensure balance, fairness, and responsiveness to community needs” he highlighted in the keynote speech delivered during the commemoration of the 31st Edition of the World Teachers’ Day (WTD) observed October 5, 2025.
He described “excessive centralization by Yaounde” as one of the main sources of “irregularities like indiscipline, duty-dereliction, abandonment, arbitrary transfers and even corruption.”
This he continued has created fertile ground “apparently (for) a multimillion business enterprise… established around postings and transfers of teachers in our education ministries, which continues to shift personnel away from rural to urban schools and even from operational to non-operational schools…”
The teacher trade unionist sees it as disarming and reducing Regional Delegates “in issues of personnel management as important as redeployment of staff and expect them be effective in managing and controlling teachers and school administrators.”
The TAC boss went further to blame this for creating instability in schools and frustration among teachers, describing it as as a process of exclusion, adding: “it silences the voices of those who master the personnel situations our Regions, Divisions, Subdivisions and schools best and creates embarrassing situations like one that we saw recently, when a teacher who died in 2024 was appointed to the post of administrator in 2025!”
Referencing a recent social media video of a woman lamenting the number of books for a four year old in class one, Mr. Tameh described it as exploitation of parents. He praised the efforts of the Minister of Basic Education “who sought to pre-empt such gratuitous exploitation with his Circular Letter No10/B1/1464/LC/MINEDUB/IGE/IP-BIL of 12 August, 2025” and called for the strict “respect of the 2025/2026 official booklist to the letter”
Mme Kilo Vivian Asheri, Secretary of State for Secondary Education, representing the ministers of Education praised the sense of maturity by teachers to ensure and continue to foster the education of the children and the future of Cameron.
The theme retained for the 2025 WTD is “Redefining/Recasting Teaching as a Collaborative Profession”. It lays emphasis on collegial work.
The theme comes at a time of deep trial for the community of educators in Cameroon, especially in the English-Speaking regions of our country. For close to a decade, education in the Northwest and Southwest has been perturbed by the armed conflict that has deprived children of their right to education, robbed teachers of their dignity and safety and denied the community the right to peace.
The 2025 WTD in Bamenda and the Northwest Region was celebrated at the esplanade of the SDO’s office. Amongst those in attendance was the Governor of the Northwest Region Adolphe Lele Lafrique and his close collaborators, members of the four education delegations (Basic, Secondary, Employment and Vocational Training and Youth and Civic Education), representatives of the Cameroon Teachers Trade Union (CATTU) and TAC and quite a good number of well-wishers and onlookers.
The events in Bamenda, the first of its kind to be held out of the premises of the Regional Delegation of Secondary Education since 2017, brought together eager educators ready to fete their day.
