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Cameroon - Summary


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The people of the Republic of Cameroon have experienced a very erratic course of educational development in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Whereas school enrollments had reached admirable levels in comparison to many other sub-Saharan African countries by the early 1980s, economic crises in Cameroon in the middle of that decade spoiled the country's promising educational performance and led to severe disruptions in the provision of education and the training of teachers. Deliberate government efforts were made during the 1990s to turn the educational situation around and to correct many of the problems endemic in Cameroon's basic education and higher education systems. In tandem with educational specialists, administrators, nongovernmental organizations, and international donors, the Government of Cameroon held several conferences and promoted new legislation and decrees to correct systemic problems, with a certain measure of success by the turn of the new millennium. Plans were drawn to better coordinate public and private educational offerings and to gather support from the private sector to improve secondary and tertiary education so as to make education more responsive to labor-market needs. Continuing improvements in the educational system seemed to depend most heavily on the decentralization of government authority and the devolution of power in the educational sector, as well as the coupling of private industry with public education to better prepare secondary and tertiary students for employment. By once again making access to primary schooling free of charge in the 2000-2001 fiscal year, the Government of the Republic of Cameroon signified its intentions to support basic education and to help all Cameroonian children enter a future where their social and economic well being could be better assured.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Musonge, Peter Mafany. Official Web Site of PM's Office (including news, speeches, and information about the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Cameroon). Available from http://www.spm.gov.cm/.

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—Barbara Lakeberg Dridi

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