TAC warns against increase in GCE registration fees

The National Council of the Teachers Association of Cameroon, TAC, has warned against any increase in registration fees for the General Certificate of Education exams.

Meeting in Bamenda on April 26,the TAC Council, issued a press release signed by its National President, Valentine TawehNfon, warning the authorities of the GCE Board not to increase GCE registration fees. The release states that, after broad-based consultations with parents and teachers: “TAC saw the move to increase the subject registration dues for GCE examinations to be too hasty and untimely and resolved that a lot of consultation, sensitisation and education be carried out before any such move is attempted.”

TAC insists that Government should assume its full responsibility of sponsoring education, especially the sensitive and delicate processes of evaluation and certification. This, according to TAC, will go a long way to alleviate the already very heavy responsibility of parents, on who now rests the enormous task of contribution of huge PTA dues, the building and equipping of schools, the remuneration of part-time teachers, among others.

Though not happy with the systematic inexplicable decline of State subventions to the GCE Board over the years, despite the paramount importance of education, the continuous astronomical increase in candidates’ numbers and the concomitant increase in budgetary allocation for the supervisory Ministry.

TAC wonders why wages, allowances, daily running and examination production and other costs remain “a mystery to all other stakeholders, except the GCE Board authorities”.

Considering the fact that the cost of living in Cameroon is only rising, coupled with threats of devaluation, TAC sees any increase in GCE fees as adding more sufferings on parents, which could bring about social unrest.