Undue exploitation of exam candidates!

Cameroonian pupils and students have already begun registration for end-of-course examinations.

In the secondary education sector for instance, stakeholders have since October 27 been clarified on what amount to pay for what official exams and when.

Be it the General Certificate of Education and First School Leaving Certificate for the English system or the Brevet d’études du premier cycle (Bepc) or Certificat d'aptitude professionnelle (Cap) for the French, the euphoria is almost always the same.

It is usually a rush period for both the pupils, students and parents given that sanctions always await late comers. The sometimes ‘mad rush’ to get registered for the examinations serves as fertile ground for unscrupulous school officials to make quick and undue cash from naive and desperate pupils and students.

There has been a popular outcry of late against officials who ask more than the official texts require. Surprisingly, the practice keeps thriving.

It is alleged that some school officials ask as much as extra FCFA 5,000 or more on the officially-stated registration fees from candidates on the grounds that it will serve to transport the examination files from the schools to the main centres. In a school of 300 students or pupils where one examination candidate is forced to pay the extra FCFA 5,000 ‘transport fair’ for instance, the officials easily make FCFA 1.5 million!

This may be more in case the number of candidates and amount of the supposedly ‘transport fair’ surpasses FCFA 5,000. Some even go as far as placing price tags on some documents that would have been offered gratis to candidates. Registration forms or stamps of some officials are sometimes paid for.

Someone somewhere may be saying that a goat eats where it is tethered. This maxim may only be accepted in a Republic of Corruption! This cannot be Cameroon. Granted or not, over-billing candidates enrolling for an official examination is utter exaggeration and tantamount to scamming.

How would candidates in their dozens, hundreds and sometimes thousands each pay for trips that are often undertaken once? Some are even wondering whether some of the school officials board planes to submit the examination files. Even if that were to be the case, the amounts harvested at term are excessively high for the exercise.

While some parents are still to recover from the expenses of the back-to-school period, others are already suffering under the weight of second instalments payable alongside the registration for end-of-course exams for those in examination classes. Feeding the children and taking them to and from the schools everyday are not always easy, judging from the cost of living in the country.

Charging extra money for ‘transport’ as it is often called, is stretching parents beyond limits. This, in other words, is thievery and disturbingly perpetrated by people who are supposed to be models. How would such a school official lecture the child or student who has been duped on moral values? Little wonder why probity is fast becoming an exception in society.

While reflection is strongly recommended on how to curb the growing scam during registration for official exams, education authorities would also need to have a deeper look on how schools are managed in the country. It is common knowledge that besides the officially stated school requirements like tuition, school books and others, some dubious officials frequently introduce needs that are everything but meeting their insatiable quest for money.

Charging computer fees in schools where electricity does not exist, selling school identification badges at cut-throat rates, obliging medical booklets from the same student or pupil every year or asking for students to pay for attestations and sometimes end-of-course certificates are among the recurrent, but despicable, practices of some school officials. The numerous requirements vary from one school to the other or from one official to the other.

In as much as parents want to offer the best of education to their children, it is inadmissible that school officials jump at that to reap where they do not sow. By that, they are selling the moral values the country and her future leaders badly need to attain set development goals to the dogs. It is time the undue exploitation is halted not only to salvage already impoverished parents but also to save society from further decay.