Management of Dyscalculia and Dyslexia for a Democratic Education in Cameroon

Management of Dyscalculia and Dyslexia for a Democratic Education in Cameroon

Ives S. Loukson (University of Dschang, Cameroon) and Helen Chwienui Ghogomu Gayelle (University of the People, Cameroon)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-8737-2.ch001
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Abstract

The study is a contribution to a more democratic education in Cameroon. “La Gaieté” School Complex works as a control panel from which a reliable visualisation of the situation in Cameroon as a whole is at hand. The study shows how undemocratic it is when teachers continually intervene in class unaware of learner's natural and effective disabilities. Dyscalculia and dyslexia are two examples of these natural disorders at stake in the study. Several management methods are suggested and also discussed in relationship with democratic education. The idea of democratic education by John Dewey, Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Amy Gutmann as it includes diversity, equality, participation, choice, and cohesion guides the study theoretically.
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Literature Review

Kom (1996) shows various inadequacies between both pedagogical practices and educational policies put in place in Cameroon and exigencies of such democracy aiming at the betterment of people’s conditions. The study by Kom rests on the conviction that education is a determinant and an effective tool which, if properly used, effectively accelerates the betterment of people condition. The study by Kom also highlights a sense of existing democracy in Cameroon which fails to provide better life conditions to Cameroonians. The Cameroonian educational model in that relation bears a huge responsibility on Cameroonian disastrous general condition so far as it does keep learners in their majority from thinking on their own.

Like Kom (1996), Eboussi (1999) relates to Cameroonian educational system as a tool of alienation and wide-ranging impoverishment of masses of the people. Instead of playing its due universal role which Eboussi views as a conquest over fortuity and violence, Cameroon education rather contributes to voluntary servitude and “de-civilization”.

In fact, the Cameroonian educational model is a pale replica of French and Britain colonial systems of education, since it was introduced without ongoing due adaptation from France and Britain, former colonial masters of the country. It is an educational model which complies to the aims of education as projected by Macauley (1995). That is an education whose proper aim radically diverts from known ideals yearned by all as far as education is concerned. As Macaulay (1995) would have said, current Cameroonian education model aims not at:

“Educating the body of the people”, but, at “forming a class who may be interpreters between us [England and France] and the millions whom we govern; a class of [Africans] in blood and color, but English [and French] in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect”. (p. 430)

The Cameroonian educational model does promote a sort of banking education which Freire (2008) worked against during his academic life. Banking education refers to such education which sedates and inhibits learners’ creative power or problem-posing. It does not involve a constant unveiling of reality. Banking education maintains the immersion of consciousness, while proper education strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality. Freire (2008) believes like Dewey (1944) that education’s responsibility is to promote learners “personal initiative and adaptability” (p. 88), and “personal interest in social relationships and control, and the habits of mind which secure social change without introducing disorder” (Dewey, 1944, p. 99) as well.

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