Cameroon-50,000 Seek Secondary Education

The Common Entrance is the first official examination by pupils and a way forward for some.

Primary school pupils in – wrote the 2010 session of the Government Common Entrance Examination into Form One of the Secondary General Education Colleges last Friday. A total of 58, 825 candidates registered for this year’s session. Out of the number, the North West Region had the greatest number of candidates with 24,404 candidates. The South West Region with 18,230 candidates and the Centre with 5,532 candidates followed.

The Minister of Basic Education, Youssouf Hadidja Alim, paid a visit to the different examination centres in Yaounde to encourage the pupils. She was accompanied by her close collaborators of the central and deconcentrated services of the Centre Region. As early as 7:00 a.m. examination officials were already in their various centres to prepare classrooms for roll call to begin at 7:30 a.m. The children were tested in Mathematics and English Language paper one (dictation) and composition and English Language Paper two. Silence was the watchword in all the centres. Parents, teachers, guardians and relatives were asked to wait for their kids outside the different centres. At break time, some of the pupils were confident. One of them, Marius Donzangue, 9, of GBPS Ekoudou said mathematics was easy and he is sure to pass in list A. As for Halimatou Mama, she had slight problems with mathematics but was sure of passing in list A.

Minister Youssouf Hadidja Alim said the objective of the visit was to see if effectively the examinations had taken-off as it was scheduled on the official calendar and also to see if there were no problems. “The teachers and examination officials applied the instructions given them. The rate of participation is about 100 percent. Examination started on time and the contacts we have got from the different regional delegations make us know that things have gone well in those areas. As Minister of Basic Education I think I am satisfied,” she said.

During her visit, the Minister also sought to know the problems in the schools such as the infrastructure and hygienic conditions. The pupils of Government Bilingual Primary School Ekoudou had to write the examination across the road in the francophone section because part of the roof of the school building was removed by heavy rain.