CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Poverty can be termed a disease or a virus that has crept into every nook and cranny of society. It is very common to hear amongst youth and the unemployed statement like “things are hard”, “things are not moving”, “we are just managing” worst still, and even among workers we hear this.

In Cameroon to be more specific, almost every one has become a “manager” for fear of been asked financial assistance, even those that the society views as the rich will still claim their pockets are empty. Ask a business man and he will tell you, it is a bad season; turn outs are poor. There is no society that can boast of a booming economy on a scale of a hundred percents. To alleviate poverty, many things have to taken into consideration.

Poverty has an enormous impact on University of Buea students. This is because poverty is one of the most pressing and talked about issues in our agenda, society and schools.

Thus the University of Buea with its thousands of students from far and wide, different sexes and gender and also classes and race, one should already know poverty has a part to play. Poverty shows its ugly face in every aspect of campus life, thus one is not a novice when it comes to poverty on campus. This poverty also affects the daily activities of the life of the students in and off campus. Thus we shall be looking at the different views of authors as regards poverty.

Scheafer (2005) defines poverty in two ways; relative poverty which is a floating standard or deprivation by which people of a society whatever their lives are judged to be disadvantaged in comparison with the society as a whole. Absolute poverty refers to a minimum level of subsistence that no family is expected to live below.

There is no single definition of poverty. One figure which has been suggested is that an income of half the national average indicates poverty. IFAD (2007).

“Poverty is defined as the relative to a standard of living in a society at a specific time. People live in poverty when they are denied an income sufficient for their activities which are an accepted part of daily life in that society. (Scottish poverty information unit).

“The most commonly used way to measure poverty is based on incomes. A person is considered poor if his/her income falls below some minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. This minimum level is usually called the “poverty line”. What is necessary to satisfy basic needs varies across time and societies. Therefore, poverty lines vary in time and place and each country uses lines which is appropriate to its level of development societal norms and values. “The World Bank Organization.”

One of the major policies put in place by the United Nations to eradicate poverty is by using the International Millennium Development Goal. The aim of this goal is to encourage development by improving social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries. These are eight international development millennium goals that 193limited Nations are members.

W.H.O, (2004) Geneva reports that despite a high and growing global average income, poverty is still a course of concern in that, billions of human beings are still condemned to life long severe poverty with all its attempted evils of low life expectancy, social exclusion, ill health, illiteracy dependency and effective enslavement. The annual death toil from poverty related causes is about 18 million deaths since the end of Cold War. This problem is unsolvable in spite of its magnitude.

According to Fombe (2009) the concept of poverty works hand in glove with the underdevelopment in that, most African countries because they are poor, they turned to be underdeveloped.

Although poverty is one of the most familiar and enduring condition known to humanity, it is an extremely complicated concept to understand, lack of financial income or low social status. Batoum (2009) note that numerous factors contribute to the concept of poverty. This include political, economic, social and cultural effects on the evolving concept is the passage of time which comprises all these forces.

Batoume (2008: 20) denotes that, poverty is a very serious economic and social problem in all societies. It is indeed a world wide problem. The International Fund for Agricultural Development- IFAD (2001) noted that more than one and a half billion people today live in extreme poverty and three quarter of them are in rural areas.

Forming (2005) notes that after independence in 1960, Cameroon experienced a strong economic growth averaging 7% a year, but the sudden out break of the economic crisis in the 1980s continued to generate poverty.

The poverty rate for Orlean County was highest in Vermont for 2003. Rural policy and research institution (2006). The World Bank (2008), reports that a common international poverty line has in the past been roughly 81 a day. In 2008, they were below the poverty line.

• Under age =17.90% under age had poverty rate of 17.90%
• Population = 14.10% 25000 people had a poverty rate of 14.10%
• Age = 66 or over = 10.90%. age 66 and above had a poverty rate of 10.90%
• Families =10.60%. Families of two or more had a poverty rate of 10.60%.

Poverty in Africa refers to the lack of basic needs (UNDP, 2012) faced by certain people in Africa. African Nations typically fought towards the bottom of any list measuring small size economic activity, such as income per capita or GDP per capita, despite a wealth of natural resources. In 2009, 22 out of 24 nations identified as having “Low Human Development” on the United Nation (UN). Human Development Index was located in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2006, 34 of the 50 nations on the UN were among the UN’s list as underdeveloped.

The greatest mortality in Africa arises from preventable water borne diseases which affected young children and infants greater than any other group. According to the UNDP (2012), Africa remains the top ranking conflict consisting of both long standing civil wars (e.g. Somalia).

Also, according to the UNDP, Africa is a full spot for refugees and the africa’s economic malaise is self-perpetuating as it endangers more of the diseases welfare, miss-government and corruption that created it in the first place. Also, Africa has low standard of living and quality life.

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in the West- Central Africa. The country is called “Africa in miniature” for it geological and cultural diversity. In term of education, 2001, the geological rate of Cameroonians estimated up to 67.9% (11% for males and 59.8% for females).

It was a GDP (purchasing power parity) was estimated at US and 2.300 million in 2008, one of the ten highest in sub-Saharan Africa. With regards to unemployment, was estimated at 30% in 2001 and third of the population was living below the international poverty Threshold of  the US and 1.25 a day in 2009. Since the late 1980s, Cameroon has been following programmes advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to reduce poverty by privatizing

Further more, the concept of poverty is a universal phenomenon in that; it affects every body and every country.

Another explanation more widely accepted is that, the poor develop a culture of poverty as a mean of adapting to their situation. According to Anthropologist Oscar Lewis and others such as Edward Banfield, The cycle of poverty is continually reinforced because children learned poverty relates values and attitudes from their parents.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Menjo (2006) notes that after the independence of Cameroon in 1960, the country experienced a strong economic growth average, about 7% a year, but in the 1980s, the country was hit by the economic crisis which was caused by a fall in the prices of the country’s export product in the world market. Faced with the situation, the IMF (2004), took certain measures to overcome the crisis but such measures like privatization of many sectors stopped providing benefits to civil servants and resulted increased crimes and vistona rate.

The economic and social policies known as structural adjustment programmes implemented in Cameroon too to steer the economy towards better economic and social performances has serious negative impacts on agriculture which is the back bone of the country’s economy due to the term set up by the international Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The very high incidence of examination fraud and other form of malpractices, the ever increasing number of students who go in for resit examination relatively low semester Grades Points Average (GPA) exercise and most recently the so called “Sperry consideration” by the university Senates which allows mediocre students to graduate without adequately fulfilling graduation requirements all these and some of the pointers to the failing standards in the University of Buea. This current study sets out to investigate what poverty does to students.

1.3 Objectives

1.3.1 General Objectives

The general objectives of the study are to look at poverty and its impacts on students in the University of Buea and define the different groups in the university.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

1. To find out the causes of poverty among university students in Buea
2. To find out the negative impacts of poverty on university students in Buea

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