Minister of Higher Education released to the press a decision he had taken earlier on July 16, 2013 slamming a four-year temporary suspension on an Associate Professor of the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Yaounde 1 and part-time lecturer at the Advanced School of Education of the same University for acts ranging from sexual, moral, physical and psychological harassment of students to ethical questions relating to requesting money in exchange of academic guidance. All these shortcomings, the text accompanying the sanction indicated, are contrary to the relevant sections of the January 29, 1993 Statutes of the University of Yaounde 1.
The University community received the news with the understandable shock; given the fact that this was the first time a member of the faculty was being punished this way; but even above all, because the prevalent problem of sexual harassment in the university milieu was, for the first time being given this kind of attention even if the hornet’s nest has been blown several times before on the need to address, if not clearly stem the tide, as attested in the revealing work by one of the University’s most iconic members, Professor Emmanuel Pondi, in a recent study on the widespread practice of indescribable sexual habits between students and teachers.
The Minister, enjoying his republican duty of using either the carrot or the stick, preferred the latter. And he stretched his stick to the utter ends by requiring a four-year suspension for the erring teacher. The move was obviously intended to deter others from such practices. But how this will remove what has become a veritable systemic problem is what is begging for an immediate answer.
The teacher in question is an academic of no mean standing because of his status as an Associate Professor and definitely a connoisseur of the system because he has challenged, not only the claim by the student who complained about sexual harassment leading to the sanction in a court of law, but would, by his act, even if inadvertently, want the floodgates of the university environment to be open to anyone who wants to see the numerous unholy acts going on there.
Professor Emmanuel Pondi’s recent work on sexually-transmitted marks on campus was revealing enough of the depth of the ill. Even if his book remained at the sole level of whistle-blowing, it was clear in his findings that teacher-female student relationship in the universities is down in the cesspit and only a very spirited endeavour will improve the situation.
Reactions emerging from the minister’s sanctions have generally been very positive, even if a law suit is in the works over the authenticity of the charge. The minister’s good intentions are very clear; but the ill is much deeper than the eye can perceive today because many argue that there is the other side of the coin to this issue, given that many girls have openly enticed, if not given up themselves entirely to even resisting faculty, to attain their objective of passing examinations.
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