Ndifongwa Emmanuel Shu, Director of Technical, Vocational Education and Training, Ministry of Secondary Education, explains the takeoff of newly created schools.

What necessitated the creation or transformation of some secondary schools in the country?

The State is concerned with bringing schools nearer to students. That is why there is the creation of some new schools in the country. Secondly, various communities are becoming enthusiastic and some asked the government to create schools in their areas. Although the schools created do not meet up with the huge demands from the community, we have selected those that meet certain conditions necessary for the Prime Minister to sign a decree.

Will these new schools effectively open their doors to students for the 2015/2016 academic year?    

In principle, no, especially schools opened in the first cycle section. But a good number of transformed schools may go operational depending on what they already have as infrastructures. Some of them may go operational if they meet up with certain minimum criteria such as infrastructures and the teaching staff. But most of them do not yet have such infrastructures. It is certain that it is the government that has to make available the minimum infrastructures and teaching staff necessary for these schools to go operational, but it is progressive not immediate.

There are situations where the community may want that the government allow them to make operational the school in their area. In such a case, the community is required to make available classrooms for the school to take-off. If the community is not ready, they will have to wait until when the government is ready to put in place the necessary infrastructure.

What has the government put in place to ensure the effective take-off of these new schools?   

Infrastructure in these schools depends on the State investment budget. At the moment, we are preparing for the 2016 budget in which the State is going to make provisions for the construction of classrooms but not for all the schools in the national territory. Given that the State is already preparing the investment budget for 2016, it means that the State cannot invest to enable these newly created schools to open their doors come September 2015.

That is why it is said that any community which wants its school to go operational will have to provide the minimum infrastructures while the State takes over in the future. Since the State is preparing the 2016 investment budget, it is only in 2016 that some of the new schools and already existing schools will have classrooms constructed as well as workshops equipped. Not all classrooms will be constructed nor all the workshops equipped. Progressively the Ministry of Secondary Education will be opening the schools as they meet the necessary requirements.

What were the criteria used in creating or transforming some schools to technical or bilingual schools?

One of such is the enclave nature of some areas which made it difficult for students to move for far distances to attend high school. In some cases parents do not have money to send their children out of their community to attend high school. In such situations, the school was raised from secondary to high school. In some cases, we have high schools existing already but congested. As such, first cycle schools were created to decongest the existing schools.

Some schools where transformed into bilingual schools in a bid to meet up with the mission of the ministry which is to make sure that Cameroonians have access to bilingual education. The professionalism of education as required by the State and in anticipation for an emerging Cameroon, general education had to be transformed into technical schools to meet up with the objective of the government.