The appointment of heads of various professional schools marks their effective takeoff.

Ongoing university reforms undertaken since 1993 have in the past two decades transformed the higher education landscape in Cameroon. In almost all State universities, professional schools have been created in a bid to adapt training to development needs and job market demands. The appointments last August 6 of university dons to head some newly created professional schools consolidates government’s irreversible option to professionalise higher education as a requirement for development.

University of Bamenda

The University of Bamenda created in 2011, now has a new head for its Higher Technical Teachers’ Training School. The appointment on Monday of Associate Professor Daniel Akume Akume as Director of the new school indicates serious things to come. The school adds to the Higher Technical Teachers’ Training School, ENSET, in the University of Douala. The creation of the Higher Teachers’ Training School also fits within government’s option to train younger Cameroonians in technical disciplines in an era of growing industrialisation and drive towards economic emergence.

University of Buea

The creation of a Faculty of Engineering and Technology at the University of Buea was greeted with satisfaction by Cameroonians who initially saw foreign universities as the only means to pursue higher education in these fields. Hence, the newly appointed pioneer Dean, Prof Pierre Sakwe, has the immense task to give the University of Buea another reputation in the field of technology.

University of Ngaoundere

The University of Ngaoundere hosts the School of Geology and Mining whose campus is situated in Meiganga, in Mbere Division, Adamawa Region, known for rich mineral deposits. Although the school effectively started in November 2011, the recent appointment of Prof. Ismaela Ngounouno marks the effective takeoff to accomplish the mission of training professionals expected to occupy the multitude of job positions announced in the growing mining sector.

University of Yaounde I

The creation of an Institute of Wood Technology in the country’s pioneer university materialises the will by State authorities to train human resources to promote the local processing of abundant wood resources. The appointment of a new Director, Isaac Bindzi, is therefore seen as timely, for wood has been identified as a growth-boosting sector.

These schools and faculties add to other recently-created professional training facilities such as the Sahel Higher Institute for Development Studies in the University of Maroua and the Institute of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences of the University of Douala, in Yabassi.