Olive Shang: The Golden Voice on CRTV

Olive Shang was born on December 25, 1936 in Kumbo, the Capital of Bui Division in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. She is presently widowed with six children. She is retired and lives in Jakiri specifically at Sop. 

Olive Shang and Husband

From 1946 to 1951, she studied at the Basel Mission School in Kumbo and between 1952 to 1953, she studied at the Girls School, Bafut in Mezam Division. In 1954 she taught as a pupil teacher at the Girls’ School Bafut. In 1959 she was a primary school teacher at the Basel Mission School, Kumbo, the same establishment where she studied as a primary school pupil.

In 1964 she joined Radio Cameroon as a Continuity Announcer. In 1966 she went ahead to take charge of and produce the women’s magazine later known as “Calling the women.” She did this alongside other programmes like “Know your neighbours”, ”Sunday Afternoon Requests” “Tele Disques” among other tasks.

Between 1969 and 1971, she benefitted from a British Government Scholarship to study in England and did a course in Radio Production Techniques at the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC Training School in London. She further pursued her education procuring passes at the General Certificate of Education GCE and a Diploma in Community Studies for Women at the African Centre in London; an initiative of the Associated Country Women of the World.

In 1972, she rejoined Radio Cameroon and continued with the Radio Programme “Calling the Women” and other programmes like “Know your neighbours”, “Meet the Patients”, “Listeners View Points” and all types of radio animations, “Music of Yesteryears” amongst others.

In 1977 she did a radio production course at the Radio Netherlands Training Centre in Holland and attended an International Seminar on Development of Population  for West African Broad Casters organised by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities in Yaounde. She was appointed as the Head of the Copy Rights Registry Bureau in the International Service of Radio Cameroon cumulatively with the production of the programme “Calling the Women.”  She also contributed on behalf of Radio Cameroon in an International Programme involving Radio Stations around the world.

In 1982, she was promoted to the rank of Assistant journalist. In 1985, she participated and presented a paper at the seminar on “Women in Decision Making” organised by the Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Development Programme in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in preparation for the United Nations Decade for Women World Conference Forum 85. She was selected by the Non Governmental Organisation NGO’s Planning committee to participate in “Forum 85” and the Decade for Women World Conference in Nairobi Kenya as Resource Person. She gave full coverage to the activities of the Decade for Women Forum 85 at the World Conference.

She fully covered the celebration in Cameroon for the first time of the International Women’s Day Celebrations on March 8 in news talks, write ups and special programmes. She chaired and participated in many round table discussions concerning the “Life and Circumstances of the Woman in Cameroon and the World.”

In 1986, she was appointed to the post of Deputy Head of the Copy Rights Registry Service. She also became part time Lecturer at the University of Yaounde Advanced School of Mass Communication. She was equally appointed as Deputy Head of the Education Programmes Service of the CRTV.

 It should be noted that since the creation of the programme “Calling the Women” in 1966, it has always been on air except when Mrs. Olive Shang was away attending Seminars or on Training Courses.

Olive Shang was equally one of the women mentioned in a Publication titled Femmes D’impactes” published during the 50^th Anniversary of the Re-Unification of Cameroon. She is mentioned alongside 50 other women who have had an impact on Cameroon in the last fifty years. In this publication she is referred to as the Microphone guru. The report runs thus:

“For many years after independence, Olive Shang’s sweet and tingling voice dominated the airwaves of Radio Cameroon and later CRTV with heart searching and warming programmes. It was not unusual for people especially women to leave whatever they did to listen to those piercing words of advice every Wednesday evening in the programme “Calling the Women. The programme became a monument and since Olive went on retirement, no one has been able to catch up the standard she set. She was an avid professional who did her work irrespective of any hardship that could surface. Olive Shang was tenacious. She beat all the odds that were characteristic of broadcasting in those days prior to the Liberty Laws and stood prominently as the Mother of Broadcast Journalism. From her humble beginnings as a primary school teacher of the Basel Mission, now the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, Mrs. Shang was recruited at the radio in 1964 as a continuity announcer. There were hardly any women of English expression qualified as journalists at the time. With her versatility, she was able to build a career in the media and to create an indelible impact in the lives of many. She undertook several training courses out of the country and successfully built up an unforgettable career. Olive Shang as she was fondly called was a ressembleur. Her prominence was noticed in society as she was solicited at every level as an adviser and leader. Mrs. Shang on a part time bases lectured at the Advanced School of Mass Communication, University of Yaounde on The Basics of Radio and Programme Production; a course that helped newly recruited Degree holders to get into the profession with an established knowledge of the intricacies of Broadcast Journalism.

In addition to her long impressive and fruitful professional career and as pioneer woman in the broadcasting arena in Cameroon, Olive Shang is a ground breaker in a myriad of domains. She founded the first ever Women’s Association of Women of the Northwest East of the Mongo “Nkongadrem” in 1973. The Nso Women’s Development Association and thereafter, actively jump started the creation of several other women’s associations and networks in Yaounde with affiliations nationwide. She was the pioneer member of the National Communication Council 1995 and was part of the Cameroonian Delegation to the Women’s Conference in Nairobi in 1985 from where she brought back the women’s anthem which women sing now in Cameroon during all official ceremonies.

Olive Shang and Kids during the 50th Anniversary Celebrations of the Reunification of Cameroon

Mrs Shang was also very active in her Christian responsibilities as an elder and as President of the Christian Women Fellowship CWF in the Bastos Congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon. Olive Shang was highly recognised both in official and Church circles with medals and distinctions of great honour. Even on her retirement in Jakiri she remains a reference.” 

Samuel Mbigha- The force in Basic and Secondary Education from Mutengene,Tiko.

Samuel Mbigha was born in Mbatu in Mezam Division in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. He was born to Joseph Mbigha and Susana Alieh Mbigha. He grew up in the village and attended Presbyterian School Nkura and then went to Longla Comprehensive College LCC in Bamenda for Secondary Education. He later moved to Government High School Mbengwi and eventually to the University of Yaounde and the University of Buea. 

Samuel Mbigha

He attended University between the late eighties and early nineties when Cameroon was at a cross roads. It was at this moment that the country after having seen the changing of the single party from the Cameroon National Union CNU to the Cameroon Peoples’ Democratic Movement CPDM that the country was on the verge of moving on into multi-partism in a movement that was spear headed by the Social Democratic Front SDF created on the 26^th of May 1990. It is no surprise that Sam Mbigha participated at the launch of the SDF. He recalls that this was the first time he was ever detained. Sam Mbigha in the following interview conducted by Francis Ekongang Nzante Lenjo within the confines of his Mutengene office, Sam Mbigha runs through most of his life from when he left university to the present thriving Cameroonian who runs educational establishments with thousands of young Cameroonians receiving quality education.

What are those unforgettable moments in your university life?

I participated in many activities of “the Parliament” as the students’ movement advocating for change at the time was called. I eventually also participated in the activities of the Social Democratic Front SDF in an active manner during the 1992 Presidential Elections. I witnessed and lived the Ghost Town experience and it was like war. 

How did this experience affect the way you eventually embrace life?

From child hood we grew up in a turbulent background where we had a lot of rough guys around. We were as such toughened right from childhood. By the time we left the university it was clear that there were no jobs for us in this country. People of my generation will testify that there were no jobs because immediately after that we heard of Economic Crises, salary cuts in the Public Service and then for a number of years there were no Public Competitive Examinations. The ENS that was even launched they told us that instead of writing, we had to compile but documents and people had to belong to lists. So for those of us who did not belong to any list and who didn’t have god parents, it was clear that the Cameroonian Public Service was not for us. We therefore had to carve a way for ourselves.

You fall in that category of Cameroonians that is referred to as the lost generation but ironically, you are not lost. You are thriving in the domain of education. What inspired your move?

Well I think that I was born a teacher. I discovered my potentials when I was in class five. In the Sunday school, one day the teacher was not there and they just came and gave me the documents that is the Bible “the Good News for Modern Man” that I should teach. There were students there who were in Form three, form two who were in that same hall but these documents were given to me. I picked it, went to the passage of that day and read it gave my own interpretation and asked questions to my own contemporaries and many of them could not answer these questions. All through my life I have been teaching. Even when I went to the University, I was offering some part time classes in some evening schools and homes. As small as I was, I taught in evening schools made up of older people until one of them was ordering me to get out on the first day he saw me thinking I was one of them. Since then I have been teaching.

How did your educational initiative come along?

In effect, I started this thing in Bamenda specifically at the former CENAJES Campus where I started like an Evening School and then ran some holiday classes. When I moved, I left it with one other friend. When I came here, I taught with the Catholic Mission around the Mongo area and when the Mission didn’t threat me well I decided to leave and I crossed over to Mutengene. When I arrived here I met a terrible situation. I was surprised to see children who were in class six class seven at the time who could not read. I realised there was a problem and felt that I could do something for these children. That’s exactly how it started. On my veranda at that time, I gathered the children and just helped them. That is when I realised that the problem was profound and felt something should be done. That’s how I started this school.

Can you identify some of your initiatives today?

For now, we have three primary schools; Foundation Education Trust Nursery and Primary School Mutengene. There is a second primary school in Mutengene which is another campus all together called the Foundation Bilingual Nursery and Primary School. Thirdly, there is Holy Spring Bilingual Nursery and Primary School Likomba, Tiko. We also have Foundation Education Trust College which offers the Grammar (General Education), Commercial Education and the Industrial for both the First and Second Cycles.

How do you think you are contributing towards the forward movement of your country and how do you feel doing what you do?

Any nation or people think that they want to strive for a brighter future. There is only one thing; education, education and education. If we are into education and we are sending out successful students at their end of course examinations, then I think we are doing it. But I actually think we are doing it more at the level where we are sending out children not just to have certificates but children who can fit in the challenging world. They can only fit if their moral base is sound, if they have aspiration, if they have ambition and they submit themselves. That’s what we are doing and they have not proved us wrong. We are looking forward to contributing to nation building through them. The person who will be President in 2035 is in School today. The Ministers in 2035 are these children we have with us today. I however have just one worry; the quality of education that we are giving to these children today. I am afraid it may not lead them to emergence. This is because we are more interested in giving people certificates without preparing them for challenges. The multiplicity of General Education Colleges that are being created everyday is not what this nation needs for emergence. We need people who can produce with their hands and not people who will sustain long academic discourses. This is because the issues of tomorrow have to be resolved with concrete action. If the Chinese could come out from the third world that they were a few years ago and they are now among the leading nations in the world it is thanks to Technical Education. If Malaysia could come out from nowhere to be the leading oil palm producer in the world then it’s telling us that we should orientate our education towards production.

We are an Agricultural Nation striving towards increased production and there is this increased talk of second generation agriculture…

  

True, we are an agricultural nation with almost no reasonable school of Agriculture to show for it. How many schools of Agriculture are found in Cameroon? That’s where our main problem lies and I appeal to the powers that be to do something about this because if nothing is done we will not change and our children will keep leaving the country every day. Go to the airport and you will see so many young Cameroonians entering the planes and going away. At that same airport you see Chinese coming out of the plane and entering Cameroon. That is where we are.

What from your point of view is the best prescription for Cameroon? Are you a political party associate or do you have an ideology that you think will be helpful towards pushing Cameroon forward?

I am apolitical. I don’t militate in any political party. I don’t have a party card for any political party. Not only because the parties have failed but because of the nature of my job. I embrace everybody and take them for what they are. I am an educator and I don’t play politics. I vote since it’s a secret ballot and it ends there. But if this country has to emerge we need to sit up. The Head of State has ear marked 2035 as the point of evaluation. He has already set the goals. It is left for the stake holders to sit on the drawing board and channel all activities to see how they can lead us to that goal. Unfortunately, our ministers travel everyday and go all over the world but I don’t know whether when they are crossing the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea they dump everything they studied out there into the sea and come back as empty as they went. We should copy the good example from those who have succeeded. Those sent on scholarship should have been capable of coming back and propelling this nation forward. I think we should sit on the drawing board and improve upon the quality of our education. The present one will not take us far. Those who are in positions of responsibility should behave like patriots.

  

 What is your religious background? Are you an atheist, a traditional practitioner or a Christian?

I am a Christian. I was born into the Presbyterian Church and I was baptised there. I am a Presbyterian Christian to the core but I am open minded. I have read the Koran. I have read a bit of Eastern writings, read a bit about Yoga, a bit of Confucianism but more to widen up and see how other people look at it. I also strongly believe that God is there.

There is this tendency for religions to constantly be subjected to divisions on purely human ideological considerations. This has been observed in the Christendom and in the Islamic world. Are you also part of that modern Christian movement that is trying to reunite the body of Christ?

There is only one God. I would just take us to the story of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant. The man who held the tusk gave his definition of the elephant. The man who held the tail gave his own definition of the elephant. That’s exactly the same way people have been looking at God. People who have done detailed studies in religion irrespective of their religious shades talk easily when they meet and radiate from the same plane. The simple man who doesn’t even know what he is after goes fighting left and right. They keep chasing the feathers and leaving the chicken. God is one. It doesn’t matter where you come from if truly you believe and you are serving God you will always identify with any other person who is truly serving God. The same fanaticism we have today the Christendom is the same fanaticism that is found in the Muslim world. At the end of the day, all these divisions are not to serve God but to serve man. Anybody who serves God cannot divide in the name of God. It is more of man’s attempt to glorify himself rather than God. That’s my stand point. Children of God move together and not in separate ways. Christianity hasn’t got two definitions but one and no Christian Church should claim to be better than the other for this is tantamount to missing the point completely.

As long as man lives, division will always be there because while many are placing God there, or the effigy of Christ hanging on the cross all the people sitting in that church are not there for Christ. People come to church for different reasons. Some come to occupy positions to deep their hands into the offering basket. Others come to use the Church as a stepping stone for political gains. As long as man puts his own Agenda before God’s it will not work. Definitely, Ecumenism is the only way out but we will need the real ecumenists. 

As a people with a cultural identity don’t you think much still has to be done considering the fact that many misconstrue culture and misrepresent it to be anti-religious?

A man without culture is like a man without a soul and if many Cameroonians are a bit lost today it’s because they let go their main source of being which is their culture. There is no way a man can function better in a borrowed culture than in his own. Culture is our language, our food and the way we dress. Because of the Language we think in a particular way. If you don’t have those things then I don’t see how you can really move forward without a cultural base. I am a Christian but when it comes to dancing the Mbagulum I dance very well and play the instruments. I interact when cultural activities are involved. In an occasion in the UK a party was organised and the Phillipino, Malaysians, Indians all came in their traditional attires and room was given to them to exhibit their various cultures. They did it in dance and many other ways. Today the whole world is going to China because of Chinese Medicine. Any person who says culture is backward should do a rethink.

Some of the so called men of God refer to our Traditional practices as heathenism. They are castigating our culture which is wrong. I saw a film from one of the tribes in the Northwest in which there is a traditional house of worship where everybody sat and worshipped in. Nothing evil enters inside that house. That was a traditional church because it is good intentioned and for the protection of people and is doing just that. God is there. They are using just one channel like the Buddhist are using their own channel. Human Culture is universal and God influences our consciousness. 

As a social being, who is Sam Mbigha?

Man is a Social being and must interact. I go anywhere at any time and I sit anywhere and interact with anybody. I want to think that the most intimate of my friends are the commoners. I have always been an executive member in my village meetings. I have also headed the Mutengene Cooperative Credit Union as the President and I think I have also left a legacy there. In educational cycles I am the coordinator for all lay private schools in Tiko

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Sunjo George: Regional Delegate of Secondary Education for the North West Region.

Sunjo George hails from Nso, precisely from Nkar in the Jakiri Sub Division in Bui Division in the North West Region of Cameroon.

Sunjo George: Regional Delegate of Secondary Education for the Northwest Region

 He was born some sixty years ago and attended primary school in his village at the Saint Mary’s Catholic School from 1960 to 1967. Thereafter he went to Saint Augustine’s College from 1967 to 1972. His academic pursuits took him to CCAST Bambili from 1972 to 1974. Still in a bid to go further, he attended the first cycle of the Higher Teacher Training College in Bambili(ENS Bambili) from 1974 to 1976. Upon completion in 1976, he joined the public service and taught respectively in CES Ndikinimiki, College Bilingue D’application, Yaounde. After obtaining a BA (Hons) in English from the University of Yaounde in 1979 he then proceeded to the second Cycle of the Higher Teacher Training College ENS Yaounde.

After graduating from ENS Yaounde, he did active classroom teaching between 1982 and 1988 in GHS Kumbo. In 1988 however there was a little professional twist in that he became the Chief of Cabinet to the President of the National Assembly the Fonka Shang Lawrence of Blessed Memory may his soul rest in perfect peace. He worked with him for four years. When they left in 1992 Sunjo George then began another phase of his career as a school Administrator. He then became Principal of GHS Elak Oku from 1992 to 1994. From 1994 to 1997 he served as Principal he served as principal of G.H.S. Nkambe. From 1997 to about 2003 he served as the Principal of GBHS Government Bilingual High School Kumbo but at the time it was also GHS Kumbo like in Nkambe.

In 2003, he was appointed the Divisional Delegate of Secondary Education for Bui and he served there for a period of six months which was up to 2009. On the 10^th of October 2009 he was appointed the Regional Delegate of Secondary Education for the North West Region. His has been a long journey which no doubt gave him a lot of experience in matters concerning Education. Moving from National Education, to Secondary Education and teaching forms quite an enriching experience which enabled him because of other experiences he gathered to be able to cope in the tasks to which he was assigned. To have a better feel of this educationist from the North West Region of Cameroon, Cameroon People’s Francis Ekongang Nzante Lenjo caught up with him in his Bamenda Office to eke out this interview. Read on…

Sir, what can you make of the Cameroon Educational System? True it is evolving but how far do you think it has gone down the road and what are those suggestions that you would chip in to enhance this evolution?

Yes as you rightly said, the educational system in Cameroon is evolving but perhaps it will be necessary for us to remind ourselves that we have two sub-systems of education and that all along the line there have been attempts to harmonize these two systems with one borrowing what is positive from the other and vice versa. It is however an ongoing process but I think that we are making a head way. Concerning Bilingualism, something that was started in Molyko or Man’o War Bay in Limbe in those days, what has been obtaining in the past was that it was two sub-systems that were actually running side by side in the name Bilingual Institutions. Now we are gradually going away from that to have Anglophones that can do disciplines in the French Language and vice versa. This experiment is one of the things that is resulting from this progress. It has no doubt its short comings but I believe that with time those problems will be solved because one of the things that hinders a proper implementation of our educational policies is insufficient staff, infrastructure and all of that particularly for our Technical Schools which need huge investments. There has been this craving for creation of schools which I totally buy because the numbers of schools that have been created have enabled some Cameroonians to be able to go to school. My humble suggestion would be that sometimes we should put a break and be able to equip these schools sufficiently and also be able to train sufficient number of teachers to cope with the high enrolment in the schools that we have in the country.    

The Unions have been fighting a war on the implementation of the 1998 Law on Education and I think that they are gradually making a head way. When this educational forum that was foreseen in 1998 would have met and sorted out the number of irregularities within our educational system, we would be moving towards a good harmonized system of education. Nothing is perfect on this God given earth. Perfection is elsewhere not here but I think we are continuously looking for ways and means to perfect our own educational system. 

You are at the head of the educational family in a region that is considered to be among the most performing in the country. About fifty percent of those who pass at the GCE come from this region. What has been the approach that produces these results?

Good. You know that one of the missions assigned to us is the supervision, follow up evaluation and the reporting to hierarchy of matters arising in the implementation of educational programmes. Now what we do at the level of the Northwest Region is to ensure proper follow up of the teaching learning processes in our various institutions. And one of the things that we have always done is the organisation of what we call the Mock GCE which incidentally started this morning and we discovered over the years that it is an adequate tool for us to use and sufficiently prepare our students for the GCE.I think it is because some other Regions saw the value in that kind of thing that all the Regions are now organizing the Mock Exams. It is the Northwest Region through the teachers’ resource unit that is organizing the Mock for all the regions of Cameroon. We do not end at just organizing because if that were to be the case then perhaps it will not serve a useful purpose so what we do is that we have a post Mock Evaluation. The teachers look at the areas where the children did not perform well and organise at the level of the Region and carry out a catch up at every Divisional Head Quarters. Resource persons come from the Inspectorate and participate in schools. During this evaluation, they get to discourse why the students performed the way they did. The teachers as such go back to their schools well armed to perfect the lapses. Furthermore, our PTAs in the Northwest are very vibrant and they put a lot of emphases on pedagogy and their contributions towards ensuring success in pedagogy have been enormous. Apart from the motivation that we give the teachers, the evaluations and follow ups, these are some of the things that we do to get the results that we always have.

Could you chip in a word with regards to Technical Education? The Anglophones do not seem to have taken this seriously. 

We know that Technical Education in the Anglophone Sub System was curiously considered as an area that was meant for students that were not considered to be intelligent but time has proved us wrong in that Technical Education is now what can put bread on the table. Students who do Technical Education can be self employed and can create jobs for other people to be employed. This is not to down play Secondary General but I think that to be realistic is to be able to get the kind of education that can get you immediately employed or immediately create a job. I would therefore in this light be calling on parents to give proper orientation to their children. Let their children do Technical Education. I would equally be calling on Government like I said a while ago to ensure that proper Technical Education is given to Children. GTC Ombe in those days was our pride. We don’t know why it went down the way it went but I think the spirit of Ombe is being revived now in other Anglophone Schools. That spirit of doing Technical Education is gradually coming back. I feel very encouraged now when I see children opting to go and do Technical Education.

Do you have a final message?

Well it has been an opportunity for me to talk to you and I think that we as stakeholders in education be they parents or students or you the journalist should engage in a continuous sensitization of our population to be able to see the need for education. We’ve been talking about the proliferation of schools in Cameroon but you will be surprised that there are still children who loiter around and do not go to school. The parents have no excuse. All the stakeholders should give the children an opportunity to go to school.

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