Cinema for Human Development as a Competence-Based Pedagogic Approach: Case of Higher Teacher Training College, Bambili

The Competency-Based Approach (CBA) is a teaching method that fosters
real development since it seeks to render learners functional in their
communities through the use of acquired skills. The problem is, although
Cameroon has adopted the practice of the CBA in its primary and
secondary schools, it has not replaced the Objective-Based designed
curricula with Competency-Based structured curricula. Teacher training
institutions like Higher Teacher Training College, Bambili, will be obliged
to use the CBA upon graduation but do not train on the CBA. The
consequences are enormous! In order to mitigate the challenges that
student teachers in Cameroon face with regard to understanding and
using the CBA to meet expected learning outcomes, the paper argues that
a blend of the ideals of Anele Michael’s Cinema for Human Development
(C4HD), Shadrach Ambanasom’s Socio-Artistic Theory and the CBA
mind-set in the course of training teachers is an effective way to foster
genuine development. The study focuses on the Higher Teacher Training
College in The University of Bamenda to demonstrate how a filmmaking
process and a literary theory can harness the merits of the CBA.
Specifically, a blend of these three development approaches can help or
encourage student teachers to appropriate the learning outcomes of the
Competency-Based Approach and, most especially, use this tripartite
setup to help their learners become active development agents to
themselves and other community members.

Keywords: C4HD; Socio-Artistic Theory; CBA; Teacher Trainee; Cameroon