Activities to mark the national bilingualism week will be launched on January 30 in Mfou in the Mefou and Afamba Division.

The Minister of Secondary Education, Louis Baapes Bapes, will launch the seventh national bilingualism week in Mfou in the outskirts of Yaounde on Monday, January 30.  Ahead of this important event, preparations are going on in the country. The week will run from January 30 to February 3, 2012. The theme for this year is “Bilingualism for a responsible citizenship”. According to the programme, a series of activities will be organised in schools nationwide. These include round table conferences, educative talks, sport and cultural activities. The objective of the bilingualism week is to include all Cameroonians in bilingualism.

The Regional Coordinator in charge of Bilingualism for the Centre, Mathieu Ongolo Ngougsa, believes the problem facing the bilingualism process in Cameroon is that Cameroonians think that bilingualism is an affair of school children. “Even in school, some teachers still feel that it is a problem of teachers of English language. We have to make the teachers and the nation know that bilingualism is for the whole nation,” he said. He regretted the fact that outside the school milieu there are people who still don’t know about bilingualism week. According to Mathieu Ongolo Ndougsa, French and English should be taught in schools as they are a key to national unity. He expressed hope that with time only bilingual Cameroonians will hold high posts of responsibilities in the country. The national bilingualism week will end on February 3, 2012 in Yaounde.