BaretaNews earlier announced that the University of Buea Lecturers under the banner of SYNES has called for a strike action over unpaid research allowances and teachers’ bonuses. They announced that they will start an indefinite strike action if the second quarter of the Research Modernization Allowance decreed by the Head of State is not paid to all teachers by 15 July 2016. BaretaNews stated that some persons have questioned the University of Buea Lecturers research capabilities. Many faulted them for doing no work with the research allowance they are asking for because people hardly see their articles in international journals. Some say you cannot even google a name of a UB lecturer and get something substantive academically. Others argued that these lecturers barely want the money to continue chasing Molyko girls, drinking beer and eating roasted fish without actually putting real work into research.

However, a Ph.D. student ( name withheld) agrees with BaretaNews, he wrote very bitterly to BaretaNews. Hear him:

” See my people, I am a science PhD student in UB. These lecturers spend time fighting each other. They will never team up to win big research grants. They have very Small small camps everywhere. We the students have to milk our families dry to sponsor our research and in the end, they will forcefully become 1st authors and submit the paper to a ‘useless’ FREE journal somewhere. Their only contribution is the ‘haphazard’ supervision….

He continues

“…I may be harsh with my words… yes, that’s because I am in the system. They use their quarterly research allowance to change their cars or complete building projects in the village. I was browsing through Bill Gate’s list of grant awardees and saw a Faculty of a Nigerian University who teamed up, wrote a powerful proposal and won some good money for the good of the Uni. This will never happen in UB because these people spend time ‘beefing’ each other. Even common projectors, they move around and beg, complaining meanwhile the lowest category lecturer has ~ 300,000frs as quarterly research allowance…..

The Ph.D. student concluded

“…Government should start by buying and imposing projectors to all of them using their next allowance. I am really bitter because in 2016, teaching with projectors in Cameroon is still a luxury. In science especially, seeing is believing. Even if we don’t have the machines in hand now, there are tons and tons of videos and animations which can help students to easily understand. We were in a PhD class one day and was really embarrassed when a mate asked a question about a technology that any weak undergraduate student could answer… just because he had never seen it before!…”

We of BaretaNews thinks this Ph.D. student has a point and it is really appalling to hear these words from a Ph.D. student for that matter. The University of Buea really need to sit up. A lot still has to be done. However, we appreciate some great strides made by a few.

God is still saying something.