The impact of Covid- 19 on Education in Cameroon

The Covid 19 situation in Cameroon is evolving rapidly, with dozens of new cases reported each day. Adding to the current challenges linked to conflict and political tensions, the Covid 19 puts our national education system and economies under increased pressure.

It was in response of to this pandemic that the government of Cameroon implemented since the March 18, 2020 several restrictive measures among which the closure of schools and Universities directly affected affecting the educational lives of about 7.2 million pupils and students across the country, including more than 4.3 million children enrolled in primary schools.

 As direct impacts of the pandemic across the nation, all public and private training establishments of various levels of education from nursery schools to higher education, including vocational training centers and professional schools have been closed. Furthermore, schools and University competitions like the University games which were supposed to be held in the days ahead are postponed till further notice. On the other hand, research institutions have not been left behind by the pandemic as almost all their activities have been brought to a halt.

Despite these negative impacts listed above, the government of Cameroon had continued with its relentless efforts to help attenuate the situation as far as the educational sector is concerned. As pupils and students continue to take preventive measures against Covid 19 by staying at home, the Ministry of Higher Education came up with a platform which allows student to continue their academic pursuit through e-learning.

Unfortunately, there is the lack of training capacity as a large percentage of University lecturers as well as school teachers do not have the appropriate training to teach online. Thus the government still has to invest a huge sum of money to strongly support e-learning infrastructures to facilitate learning and teaching. Another factor which greatly hampers the e-learning is our poor network system and electricity failures. Most area communities within the national territory do not have good network coverage. Access to electricity is one of the problem which has to be dealt with as far as e-learning is concerned.