|
responds to its people’s needs. Any government that comes to power through and approved procedure by the citizens and is of good service to its people is developed. On the other hand, any government that
seeks to be of service to only a portion of the population is underdeveloped.
4) Personal development: personal development means the inner feeling, increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, self-discipline, self-esteem and a sense of responsibility. This comprises the
psychological direction of individuals. It is doubtful if a rise in income alone or material wealth equally increases human happiness and one's self esteem. Many would agree that a person's contentment with his life
depends essentially on his sure sense that he is a valuable being, that his life has some worth and that he belongs to a community of human beings who care about him. If one is aware that his own community on
which he depends does not recognize and respect him, his life would appear to be useless. Self esteem is an important component of development of development. It is a sense of worth and self respect, of not being used as a tool by others for their own needs. It is
necessary for good life and people of all societies need it. They may term it dignity, honour, recognition, but it means the same thing. In the MDCs, television has replaced human companions and telephone
enables people to transact business at a distance with little or no human contact. Then the critical question must be asked: "is economic
development worth while?".
Large numbers of Peace Corps volunteers, upon returning to their home countries have examined their own society with critical new eyes.
After their experience say in Africa, they can compare the treatment accorded old people in the MDCs with that dispensed to the aged is societies where the extended family provides satisfying roles for grand
parents. Any society where individuals have very little self-esteem (dependence on anti-depressant, tranquilizers etc), where killing is rampant and the rate of suicide so high is not civilized and its development should be questioned.
The economic crises that Cameroon is facing today are as a result of the inefficiency of the economic system, a mental problem and as a consequence, a violation of human rights. It is not possible to
understand a human being on the basis of economics alone. A human being is better understood in a more complete way when situated within the spheres of culture through language, history and the position one
takes towards the fundamental events of life, such as birth, love, work and death.
For the purpose of economic growth, Cameroon needs to sustain its economy and technology. There can be no doubt that Cameroon has an abundant labour force, but a good portion is unskilled. A person's capacity for mental and physical energy and even his physical
comfort are affected by a number of factors-nutrition, training, cultural habits, religion, standard of living and even psychological factors. All these factors affect the quality of labour force in one way or another, and the Cameroon government and its partners like Japan, China, France, The US, etc. should help implement the economic policies that will take Cameroon closer to its objective of caring for the common man. These include the construction of more schools for higher and quality education. As a result of semi-literacy, there is therefore a
shortage of high quality labour force. With this semi literacy status, most Cameroonians are content with the idea of belonging to the civil service and a large portion of the business sector is controlled by
non-Cameroonians. The few available Cameroonian businessmen lack the real entrepreneurial skills; they delight essentially in acting as middlemen or sale representatives of some foreign produced goods and
because of the low quality of their education, which is also based on theory, they do not engage in the actual production of tangible goods.
With a sound quality educational system (informal and vocational inclusive), Cameroonians will be able to develop creative and enterprising attitudes which are the key factors to success. Also, skilled technical labour supply remains an acute problem. The shortage in skilled technical labour results essentially from inappropriate educational
structures, curricula, school system and lack of facilities in technical schools. The technical schools in particular instead of sending out professionals turn out graduates who only know scientific facts in theory with little ability to apply them.
To solve this problem, the government should improve on the quality of education both formal and informal as well as encourage corporations to
accepts students for internships, so that they can learn to put the scientific facts they acquire into practice.
Also, there is the problem of international brain-drain which affects many developing countries, including Cameroon. By this I mean, the emigration of professional and skilled personnel educated in the
|
Tags
You must be logged in to add tags.
|
Writer Profile
Akwalla Johanness
I am a young development activist who believes that for youths to be successful, we need to come together and share ideas that are beneficial to the whole of humanity.
I strongly believe that for Africa to come out of the political hostage its finds itself, our leaders must stop to consider themselves as traditional rulers. We all know that traditional rulers rule for life, and power is passed on to their descendant. And I think that once our leaders stop to think of themselves as such and concentrate on development by investing into the education and basic health care and social services, then can we say we are on the right path to human development.
|
Comments
You must be a TakingITGlobal member to post a comment. Sign up for free or login.
|
|
