Commonwealth Week 2001
in Cameroon

SWEET IGNORANCE

History of the Commonwealth

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The fact that Cameroon in most parts is French speaking does not encourage young students to use the English language in their daily life. That is why Commonwealth issues seem uninteresting to children.

Cameroon was admitted as member of the Commonwealth family five years ago. It`s a bilingual country - French and English being the two official languages.

The admission to the Commonwealth as a member has not influenced primary school programmes to include any Commonwealth issues, whether the school is bilingual or not. So, any inclusion is informal and up to the personal initiative of primary school directors. Teachers sometimes discuss Commonwealth issues during the course of daily lessons in the exam classes, that is with children in classes five and class six.

At this time children learn more about Commonwealth, the composition of Commonwealth, why some countries are members and some are not, and when Cameroon joined.

Overall, young children are not very interested in Commonwealth issues, in part because they do not understand the language in which they are described. Their priority is to get marks and pass their exams.

The initiative of introducing properly structured primary school courses about the Commomwealth; what it stands for and how it helps countries like Cameroon, belongs to the Ministry of National Education. As yet the initiative has not been taken up and the children wait ...