Clandestine Schools : The Vicious Cycle

E very year, the Ministries of Basic and Secondary Edu­ cation shut down hundreds of schools which fail to meet the requirements for operational legality, in Ca­ meroon. Recently, the Minister of Secondary Education issued a communique which named 98 already functioning secondary schools as being “clandestine”, an exercise that seems to have now become an annual tradition. Every year the Minister signs the order, and every year we still hear of a myriad of educational institutions operating without the proper authorizations. Quality education matters and that is why parents are desperate to get their children into the best schools their means can afford. Unfortunately, as each new academic year launches, many of these parents find themselves in the unpleasant situation of having to watch helplessly as their kids are left disheartened, disillusioned and facing the prospect of academic displacement, because the schools in which they have been enrolled have been branded “clandestine” and subsequently decommissioned. The question is no longer on whe­ ther or not these schools should be shut down, but rather on how to break the perpetuity of this now perennial cycle. According to this years’ report by the Private Secondary Education Monitoring Brigade (BNCP), there is not a single region in this country that is free from the gangrene of quack school operators. Clandestine schools are notorious for providing substandard teaching to their scholars, operating without official recognition, employing uncertified instructors and lacking in vital resources like libraries. The vast majority of them are run from non-permanent locations, such as rented flats or uncompleted buildings, thereby posing a substantial risk of accidents and injury to people in the en­ vironment. So, yes, they constitute a major problem which must be eliminated pronto. To this end, the Ministry of Se­ condary Education states (in a communique) that it carries out a “yearly sanitization exercise” to take care of the problem. However, when such an exercise takes place every year yet the number of illegal schools remains high and is even rising in certain regions, then this “sanitization” is clearly not geared at eradicating the phenomenon or it is too narrow to solve the problem. To operate a private school in Cameroon, proprietors must first secure an Authorisation to Establish, followed by an Authorisation to Open, both issued by the relevant ministry. The process requires the submission of legal, infrastructural, financial and pedagogical documentation through the ap­ propriate Subdivisional delegation. It is essential to note that having requested an Authorisation to Establish does not permit a proprietor to commence operations. The law re­ quires them to wait to receive the Authorisation to Open memo, before the school can validly be open for business. Unfortunately, many begin operating without this final ap­ proval. Even if a proprietor meets all the requirements to run a private school, operating without an Authorisation to Open, renders the institution illegal. While school proprietors are obliged to comply with the law, it is important to recognize that the system often pushes people into a state of frustration which could compel them to overlook the legal requirements and go operational despite the risks in­ volved. To justify this stance, some proprietors cite the ad­ ministrative bottlenecks between the ...