Eradicating Clandestine Schools

A new academic year is about to begin and one of the main reasons for concern to both parents and educational authorities is the enrolment of pupils and students by clandestine schools and colleges implanted throughout the country.

Private education plays an important role in Cameroon's educational system. In elementary education for example, recent statistics show that private schools enrol 25 per cent of pupils, employ 32 per cent of teaching staff and have 33.5 per cent of schools throughout the national territory. These official figures, however, do not take away the problem of clandestine schools and colleges that has become a cankerworm. Statistics indicate that in 2007-2008, over 4,000 clandestine schools were identified throughout the country.

The increase in clandestine schools, it is said, is attributed to the inadequate number of schools. In spite of government's efforts to transform the legal framework governing the creation of schools from an authorisation to a declaration regime, several private education promoters are still unwilling to declare the opening of their schools with documents showing they are fit to provide quality education to young Cameroonians. Hence, they function without declaring their creation and opening.

Besides complying with the law, proprietors of clandestine private primary schools and colleges are accused of being more interested in making money than educating children. Proof is the kind of infrastructure wherein they provide education. School surface areas are usually less than the 1.5 square kilometres required. Buildings are either dilapidated or insufficient, built in swampy areas with private homes sometimes transformed into classrooms. Lack of toilets, potable water and didactic equipment, amongst others, is common. More so, the quality and quantity of teaching staff as well as their meagre remuneration leave much to be desired. Also, school programmes are not often fully implemented.

More alarming is the practice by some clandestine school proprietors to collect registration fees for official examinations from their pupils and students only to register them in legal schools; sometimes with the complicity of corrupt local education authorities. Consequently, some parents discover to their dismay during certificate examinations that their children were not registered anywhere because their schools do not operate legally.

At the Ministry of Secondary Education, a strategy has been adopted this year to publish the list of officially-recognised colleges after series of closures proved inefficient. On its part, the Ministry of Basic Education has launched a nationwide campaign to make the fight more permanent. Proof lies in the recent closure of over 800 primary schools in five regions (West, Centre, South West, North West and Littoral) and the involvement of local administrative authorities to ensure the effectiveness of the fight.

The ministry is sensitising authorities in different delegations to cease being accomplices and identify clandestine schools. Governors have been urged to head regional committees, comprising all stakeholders, to step up the fight. The press has been solicited to help sensitise parents not only by disseminating the lists of closed schools, but also educating them on the short and long term risks of enrolling children in clandestine schools. Sources in the Ministry of Basic Education indicate that the campaign is crucial to the upcoming launch of the 2012-2013 academic year by Minister Youssouf Adidja Alim.