Fallout of Anglophone uprising:

Over 100.000 prospective GCE candidates yet unregistered

-GCE Board extends registration deadline to 20 March

-Calendar of examinations to be revised to suit new realities

-Gov’t assures exams must hold and certificates issued will be valid and credible

By Boris Esono in Buea

Amid rumours spreading on social media of a blank 2016/2017 school year and lost 2017 session of the GCE examinations, the Cameroon General Certificate of Education, GCE Board, has announced that registration for the 2017 GCE are still ongoing and the exams will hold come what may. Authorities of the Board have announced an extension of the deadline for registration of potential candidates for the 2017 GCE to 20 March.

                GCE Board authorities made the announcement in Buea Saturday, at the end of an extra-ordinary meeting of the Council of the Board. The Chairman of the CGCE Board’s Council, Prof. Peter Abety said Registration for the 2017 session of the GCE Examinations that ended on Friday, 28 February, have been pushed ahead to 20 March 2017, to enable for prospective candidates and parents who were still dragging their feet or hesitating to register to come forth and do so.

                The very salutary decision by the Council of the GCE Board was taken after two days of intense brainstorming by members of the Board’s Council, that was enlarged this time to also include other education stakeholders who are not statutory members of the Council notably leaders of teacher trade unions, education secretaries of mission schools, representatives of parents among others.

                At the end of the two-day concertation, the Council of the GCE Board also urged parents to seriously consider sending back their children to school as from Tuesday 7 March. GCE authorities explained that it is important and imperative for schools to resume soonest if examination candidates must complete the syllabuses for the exams they are supposed to sit.

                “The GCE is set based on complete syllabuses for different subjects. The exams are not set from parts of the syllabuses. This means that candidates for the exams are expected to have exhausted the entire syllabuses if they must be fully prepared for and comfortably write the exams,” explained the chairman of the GCE Council, Prof. Abety to reporters.

                Abety appealed to parents and students to adhere to this other call for schools to effectively resume, if they must not seek to compromise the sterling standards that stakeholders and successive managers of the Cameroon GCE Board have tirelessly afforded the National examination.

                About worries expressed that candidates may not be able to complete the syllabuses even if schools resumed on Tuesday, Prof. Abety said government was very conscious of such worries and would likely take measures to enable candidates to make good the lag. He expressed the hope that the Minister of Secondary education will see the need to revise the 2017 examination calendar to suit emerging realities on ground.    

                It is expected that prospective candidates who were yet unregistered for the GCE at the end of the 28 February deadline, would now rush and do so. According to Board statistics, barely 70.000 candidates had registered within days to the 28 February deadline. When one considers that some 182.000 candidates sat for the exams in 2016, and giving that the number of candidates keep increasing by the year, then one could very easily extrapolate that the GCE Board should be waiting to register at least 90.000 more candidates, that is, between now and 20 March.

                Needless to state that most of the unregistered candidates are in the NW and SW regions, where schools have been boycotted for over three months, following the teachers’ strike that started on 21 November 2016.

                It should be noted that despite a call for suspension of the strike by some leaders of teacher trade unions, schools have still not resumed in most parts of the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon. Even though most public schools opened their doors of for students to come the latter either vehemently refused to come or only timidly and/or reluctantly complied.

As for private schools and mission schools, their doors have remained permanently sealed, giving the impression that students are on holiday.

                It is the hope of many that with this goodwill gesture by the GCE Board coupled with the good faith demonstrated by government in trying to address the issues raised by the striking teachers, parents will now see the imperative need to send their children back to school, so that the school year can move on to its natural end.

But for this to happen, it is expected that the government will also see the need to gradually demilitarize the NW and SW regions that have easily transformed into war zones, due to a heavy and frightening military presence.

                Then Catholic, Presbyterian and Baptist mission authorities should also soften their hardline posture and call back their students to school. It is believed that if this is done it will go a long way to push the hesitant parents to finally send their kids to school and of course save the academic year.

Debates over GCE exams & schools resumption

                Understandably, the 2017 GCE exams have provoked a vast amount of debate in both public and private arena in the country, with some arguing for the exams to hold at all cost, while others are pressing their case for the exams to be postponed sine die.

                Those who are for the exams to hold argue that the GCE is a national exam meant for all Cameroonians and not only for students of the NW and SW regions. For those who are for the cancellation or postponement of the exams, they argue that the GCE is for students of the English sub-system of education and the bulk of these students are in the NW and SW regions where schools have not been functioning for several months now.

                The debates notwithstanding, the Minister of Secondary Education in a release published on 24 February stated unequivocally that “the official examinations of the 2017 session, organized by the GCE Board, the BACC Board and the Department of Exams, Concours and Certification, will hold throughout the national territory, and all certificates issued at the end of these exams will be valid and credible.”

                Minister Jean Ernest Massena NgalleBibehe issued his communiqué amid talk in many quarters about a possible blank 2017 academic year in Cameroon.