Transferring Teaching Skills in the Global Context of the BRI: The Training of Cameroonian University Teachers in China

In the recent years, higher education in the world was impacted by tremendous shifts commanded by globalization. Cameroon does not escape these crucial challenges of the professional development of university teachers in the new era of globalization. In Cameroon, many teachers come to the university with their master’s or doctorate degree, but without knowledge and mastery of the faculty of teaching: they know, but they do not know how to teach. Unlike many countries, China, our comparative unit of analysis, has built up a system of regular, formal, institutionalized, and compulsory program of training of university teachers. We aim to explain the reasons, motivations, and goals animating the professional training of university teachers in China with a specific desire to draw strategies and practices that Cameroon can benefit from the Chinese experience into educational development of university teachers. The fundamental question is about the required qualifications to serve as higher education teacher in China and what Cameroon can borrow from that experience. These questions are important at the theoretical and practical levels. Theoretically, it is a contribution to the scientific debate on the issue of teacher education in higher education. Practically, our reflection is viewed as a concrete tool in order to help both university teachers and stakeholders in their ambition of building up a national innovative, solid, and excellent higher education teaching staff system of training university teachers in Cameroon. Finally, it opens new roads and options for China-Cameroon cooperation at the level of higher education.