A Speech Presented by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bamenda on the Occasion of the Pedagogic Seminar, 12 September 2014

• The Deputy Vice-Chancellors
• The Registrar
• Deans/Directors of Faculty/School
• Partner Institutions of The UBa
• Resource Persons
• Dear Colleagues

Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the creeds that has very much endeared itself to our State Authorities and to The UBa in particular is “Quality Assurance”. The present Seminar is expected to give this concept it’s full-blown, consistent and comprehensive definitional as well as its practical frame of reference. But beyond that, we expect the Seminar to concretely and convincingly address other very key issues related to pedagogy.  Paramount among them are the following:

It is my profound pleasure to welcome all of you to The University of Bamenda, and particularly to today’s Pedagogic Seminar which is in compliance with Ministerial Decision No 13/07084/ MINESUP/SG/DCAA/SDAA/DI of 23 September 2013.  I would like to start by apologising for the belated organisation of this Seminar: for reasons beyond our control, it had to be postponed several times. By foregoing your numerous preoccupations to take part in this Pedagogic Seminar, you have, once more, expressed your goodwill in actively participating in the upbringing of the baby called “The University of Bamenda”. Last month, it was still a toddler until the Programme Committees enabled it to start walking and running confidently. It is our expectation that the present Pedagogic Seminar will accelerate its growth into a responsible adulthood, because, as an illustrious African writer, Chinua Achebe, said, when a child washes its hands clean it can sit at the table and eat with Kings. To cut a long story short, the future of The UBa lies in our present effort to give it a solid and unshakeable intellectual, moral and pedagogic foundation and stonewall its barriers because the child, in the words of the famous poet, William Wordsworth, is the Father of Man.  Our responsibility as pathfinders for the University of the Future is heavy and demands a lot of perseverance and abnegation. I therefore entreat you to seize the opportunity afforded by this Pedagogic Seminar to work selflessly, convivially and devotedly so as to strive at the truth, namely, that The UBa is, indeed, the University of the Future. For, as a famous intellectual, Alice Walker, once asserted, it is only the cruelty of Truth, telling it, shouting it that will serve us and then save us.

• An indepth understanding of the structure, content, workings, implications and fallouts of the BMP educational paradigm, especially in terms of its emphasis on interdisciplinarity and multi-disciplinarity as working principles.
• The need for consciousness-raising as a leeway for a gender-inclusive pedagogy: our teaching programmes, staff and students must be drilled on the needs for gender equity and the dangers of all forms of chauvinistic practices.
• The need for our syllabi to be streamlined; standardised and rendered publishable by 2015.
• Pedagogic practices that emphasize professionalization and entrepreneurship as a guarantee for independent/self-sufficient employability must be encouraged.
• The Seminar should probe into the texts which regulate the academic life of our Schools and Faculty by stretching and straightening their contours and rendering them more practicable.
• Our pedagogic endeavours must be socially relevant: they must reflect, and in turn be reflected by, our socio-economic environment such that we are able to train high level manpower for the local industries such as pottery, weaving, sculpting, visual and performance arts as well as other forms of cultural artefacts.
• Our partners of Private Higher Institutions of Learning should live up to the expectations of the Ministry of Higher Education and The UBa. These include a rigorous application of the rules and regulations governing Cameroon’s Higher Institutions of Learning, a strict and meticulous observance of Quality Assurance and a stringent respect of the stipulations of our MoUs and SPAs. It is our sincere wish that mentoring and vetting be conducted in a climate of respect, reciprocity, conviviality and mutual comprehension.

Hopefully, once these key-issues are addressed, there is no gainsaying the fact that the Pedagogic Seminar will have included the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the “Growth and Employment Strategic Paper” (GESP) as some of its viable frames of reference, which, by implication, hinge on President Paul Biya, the Head of State’s vision of an emergent Cameroon come 2035.
On the strengths of the foregoing recommendations, I declare open the Pedagogic Seminar.
Long live The University of Bamenda,
Long live the Ministry of Higher Education,
Long live Cameroon.