Nouvelles églises et participation à l’œuvre éducative au Cameroun : le cas des chapelles pentecôtistes camerounaises dans la ville de Yaoundé.

Abstract

New churches and participation in educational work in Cameroon: the case of Cameroonian Pentecostal chapels in the city of Yaoundé. This is the title of this research work which started from an initial observation that of the flagrant absence of Cameroonian Pentecostal churches in the promotion of academic education. When asked what is the degree of involvement of Cameroonian Pentecostal churches in the promotion of academic education, it appears that: "Cameroonian Pentecostal churches are religious congregations whose activity is largely limited to evangelism, social teaching and prayers of deliverance. On the other hand, the promoters of these chapels who officiate in the city of Yaoundé are hardly involved in the creation of schools to ensure the academic education of young people”. Using a hypothetical deductive approach, based on observation and interviews with the main actors and other resource persons, the three research hypotheses put forward at the start confirmed this reality in the field. On the theoretical level, this reality has been deciphered through the prism of three analytical grids of the social sciences, namely: the theory of resources and skills (Penrose, 1959), the approach to the management of opacity (Ateba Eyéné, 2010) then methodological individualism (Boudon, 1979) in its perspective of the actor and rational choice. At the end of this research, the general observation that emerges is that the Cameroonian Pentecostal churches, under the fallacious pretext of the "lack of means" put forward by their pastors (founders or promoters of the chapels) to justify their absence in the field of academic education, contribute very little to education and human development in Cameroonian society. These congregations rather set themselves up as real actors of underdevelopment, through the behavior of its pastors who raise sums of money in synagogues during prayer sessions and instead invest these funds in personal projects.