A tracer study of graduates of the ASTI interpreter training programme (2004-2008 and 2008-2017)

Abstract

This article aims at highlighting some of the limitations of the two previous studies carried out by the Advanced School of Translators and Interpreters (ASTI) on its products since its inception in 1985. It also aims at completing the picture by analysing data for the periods 2004–2008, and 2008–2017 which were not considered in previous studies, with particular focus on products from the interpretation programme. The first study is “A Tracer Study of Graduates of the Advanced School of Translators and Interpreters (ASTI) from 1987 to 2003”, published in 2004, 16 years after graduating the first batch of translators (1987), and 15 years after graduating the first batch of interpreters (1988). The second study, commissioned by the Cameroon Government (Ministry of Higher Education) in 1997 and carried out between December 1998 and April 1999, is entitled “Survey on the Translation and Interpretation Job Market in Cameroon”. The author uses the same questionnaire instrument as in those pioneering studies to elicit and analyse data for the periods targeted. Through the products of the programme, the study offers an interesting insight of how the credit system under which the programme operated between 1993 and 2008 ended. It also reveals how the programme fared under the current BMD (Bachelor-Masters-Doctorate) system between 2008 and 2017. This contribution stands as a “continuation” of the earlier studies, thus providing a more comprehensive appraisal of the path covered by ASTI through its Division II (interpretation) products. It comes at a timely moment to fill a serious gap highlighted in the literature.