Dear All,

            As some of you may already know we have been busy over the Christmas holidays working to raise funds for the school. The lottery was a great success, as was the Christmas disco held at Cambridge house for Year 7 and 8 students and the Christmas Charity market organised by Carmen Garcia Lopez de la Torre, in La Eliana.  We would like to thank everyone for their help and support during this period particularly those who gave up some time to help at the market, stock the tables and give out leaflets.

 In this newsletter I would like to talk a bit about the education system in Cameroon so that you can see where your children in the system.

Because of the two different colonial systems Cameroon there are two parallel education systems. The Anglophone provinces (3 provinces,) follow the old British system culminating in O levels and A levels, and the francophone area, (the other 7 provinces) follow the French System. Until recently the Anglophone community had the problem that there was no Anglophone University. This problem has been partially solved by the creation of a university in Buea.

The Far North province, which includes the Monts Mandara Mountains and the village of Gouria, is in the francophone area.
Theoretically children start their compulsory education at the age of 6. The following is a list of the year groups through which they should pass. Progress form one year to the next is based on average marks obtained in exams throughout the year.

1.         S.I.L.                                                            6 years old
2.          C.P.    (Cours Preparatoire)                  7 years old
3.         C.E.1.  (Cours Elementaire 1)                8 years old
4.          C.E.2   (Cours elementaire 2)               9 years old
5.         C.M.1  (Cours Moyen 1)                         10 years old
6.         C.M.2. (Cours Moyen2)                          11 years old

This leads to the nationally set C.E.P.E. examination which is the official certificate of Primary education.

At this time the students can also be entered for a variety of exams leading to places in secondary schools; the more academic LYCEE, the LYCEE BILINGUE 8for bilingual children,) or the LYCEE TECHNIQUE, where they would be taught a trade.  They start in SIXIEME, or sixth grade and move up to CINQUIEME, (5 th grade,) QUATRIEME, (4th grade) TROISIEME, (3rd grade) SECONDE,  (2nd grade) PREMIERE (1st grade) and finally TERMINALE. 

IN 3rd grade the students take their BEPC, in seconde they take the probatoire, and then in terminale the Baccalaureat.

In practice there are many problems in education. Although the government is making efforts to train and recruit more teachers, to build more classrooms and improve the standard of primary education available the demand is increasing at an amazing rate. Parents are beginning to understand that they most send their children to school and the numbers of children at school are increasing as fast as the government can work. There are still many children, particularly girls, who despite the efforts of the government in their awareness campaigns do not attend school at all. Some of the reasons for this being:

• There is no school within reasonable walking distance of their home.
• There is a school but no teacher on a regular basis.
• The parents have no money to by exercise books, pencils, chalk slates etc or to pay the matriculation fee.
• For religious or other reasons parents feel girls unworthy or not in need of education and the authorities cannot do enough to follow up parents who do no comply to the compulsory primary education law.

Progressing through the system is not easy even for those that do manage to attend school and usually takes longer than the 6 years officially allowed. Reasons for this include:

• Children start school late because they have no opportunity when they were six
•  They miss a lot of school through illness
•  They miss a lot of school because they have to work at certain times of the year.
• Their teacher miss a lot of school and no supply teachers are available
• Many classes have enormous numbers of children in them despite the Ministry of Educations limit of 54. I have seen a class of 240 year 2 children of ages between 7 and teenagers.
• Many children arrive at school with no equipment and therefore cannot work.
• Children have no experience of books before school age
• Children in many areas have little or no experience of the language in which they will be learning as they only speak local languages in their families.

 Given all these difficulties those who do make it through to university have been tested in not only their ability to learn but also their willingness to make sacrifices for their studies, work hard and show dedication.   We are delighted to say that so far our Malima children have shown all of these qualities.  The success rate at the end of Primary School and moveing on to secondary has so far been 1005 every year. Although some students have given up education before finishing primary none have had to give up because they failed their exams. Of this we are very proud and congratulate the teachers and director. Let’s hope they can continue like this.

            This year I hope to visit malima in July. If anyone is interested in coming with me then please contact me.

Thanks, Judith