‘Lack of prospects keeps students away from philosophy in Cameroon’

By Aurore Bonny

DOUALA, Cameroon (AA) – Even as the philosophers for over centuries have been associated with wisdom, intellectual culture, and yearning for knowledge, there are fewer takers for this discipline in the Central African country of Cameroon.

"People have assigned a pejorative lexicon to philosophy. They consider it as madness and say that philosophers are madmen. Others say that it does not make money," Ngolle Junior, a third-year philosophy student at the University of Douala, told Anadolu Agency on eve of the International Philosophy Day being observed on Sunday.

He said that the discipline faced prejudice and counselors also do not guide students and even distract them from taking this discipline.

Denis-Ghislain Mbessa, a teacher-researcher, said that while the lack of job opportunities has undermined the significance of philosophy, recommends that this stream of education should be given practical than theoretical dimension to make it attractive.

He said the caricatures of philosophers, looking dirty and careless have also contributed to tarnishing the image of this discipline. He said it is also because of the absence of teachers.

The researcher also cited the absence of a philosophy program in the private institutes of higher education, which could have increased the need for teachers in the city and boosted opportunities in this stream of education.

Mbessa said the lure for money has taken the students away from this discipline. He also said that absence of specialized schools for teachers of philosophy and linked it to the absence of the discipline in major seminaries or the schools of theology in Douala.

Regarding the use of technology, Ngolle said students could take better advantage of it to facilitate their access to reading.

"And yet many don't understand the importance of technology. Access to the Internet should facilitate access to knowledge and not push young people to disappear from the fields of knowledge by privileging the distracting side of digital," he said.

Soh Seraphin, a third-year student at the university who wants to become a teacher, said philosophy was not his first choice. But he has now become passionate about the discipline as he feels that it opens the mind.

"It is very often people who know nothing about a philosophy who claim to know it better and say bad things about it. This discipline allows one to create oneself and to undertake intelligently," he said.

On the significance of this stream, he said the philosophy develops multiple faculties in the human being.

“It is a way of life, an art of living more immense than what is said in the books, in the classrooms. It is the foundation of a society," he said.