EDUCATION-CAMEROON: Private Trumps Public – For Better and For Worse

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sylvestre Tetchiada

YAOUNDE, Dec 29 2004 (IPS) - In 1993, the government of Cameroon passed a law allowing private tertiary education institutions to be established in the country. Now, almost a decade later, is this decision still viewed as the right one? That depends on who you ask.

For Sammy Beban Chumbow, rector of the government-run University of Yaoundé I, certain private institutions “present a distinct threat to public universities”.

“They concentrate on special and lucrative areas such as computer science, management, international trade and medicine…They also draw the best teachers out of the public system by offering them higher salaries, and they charge fees that only rich people can afford,” he told IPS.

Lucien Kombou, dean of the Faculty of Economics and Applied Management at the University of Douala, has similar concerns.

“The private sector is mostly interested in making money. Their mission is not like ours: to offer universal access to education, equal opportunity and quality teaching,” he said in an interview with IPS.

For Cameroon’s students, however, the degrees offered by certain private facilities – especially the local branches of foreign colleges – are viewed as their ticket to a better life outside the country. In part, this is because the qualifications offered by these institutions are thought to be easily accepted abroad.

“I want to broaden my horizons, work for a multinational and go to the United States or Canada. So, I decided that I’d better get a diploma that would travel well,” says Evelyne Etonde, a part-time human resources consultant for a mobile phone company in the capital, Yaoundé.

Etonde is currently completing a Masters in Business Administration at a Yaoundé-based branch of the New Brunswick Community College, a Canadian facility, and expects to receive the qualification in January. She is also taking an internet-related course through the National Centre for Distance Learning in France.

In other instances, a degree or diploma from a foreign institution is simply considered more marketable.

According to Pascal Eloundou, a second-year marketing student, and Ferdinand Wandji – in his fourth year of international finance, “Bosses are looking for workers coming out of foreign universities.”

“Since we can’t go abroad, we’ve seized the opportunity to train here for the same diploma,” added Wandji, who is awaiting the results of a recruitment test from a regional office of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

“We understand that students would rather have saleable diplomas,” says Jules Mfonchiou, a junior lecturer at the University of Yaoundé II-Soa. “They believe foreign qualifications are more prestigious than national qualifications – and sometimes even see them as being passports to wealthy countries.”

While the cost of private tuition is deemed prohibitive by many, certain students and their families appear willing to shoulder this burden.

“I feel comfortable at the Catholic University of Central Africa, even though the fees are huge. The courses are adapted to our environment and most of the students who leave here are prepared for a job,” Theodore Ngann, a fourth-year student who is majoring in international finance, told IPS.

Most parents who send their children to private universities are high-ranking company managers, senior public servants and successful businesspeople.

According to education officials, about 15,000 students are enrolled at the 18 private tertiary institutions in Cameroon, while 75,000 students attend six public universities. The National Supervisory Commission for Private Education (Commission nationale de supervision de l’enseignement privé, CNSEP) is in charge of overseeing education standards in private colleges.

While certain private facilities have a good reputation, the tuition at others leaves something to be desired. In October, the CNSEP closed down a number of universities that were providing students with a sub-standard education.

This doesn’t appear to have discouraged those seeking to establish additional private colleges.

“The craze for creating private institutions of higher learning (is such) that our offices have been flooded with start-up applications,” says Joel Moutlen, the president of CNSEP.

However, by the time Cameroon’s universities began the new academic year two months ago, only 10 out of 42 applications examined by the CNSEP had been found to meet requirements, notes Moutlen.

Young graduates of private schools are often recruited by banks, oil multinationals and other companies in the fields of telecommunications, insurance, the media and health services. Specialized agencies in the UN system are also destinations of choice for graduates.

But, even with a qualification from a private institution, many students will have great difficulty finding their niche in the market place.

The economy can only absorb 40 percent of graduates coming out of the best universities and 25 percent of those who attend second-tier schools, according to the National Employment Fund.