Cameroonian responses to COVID-19 in the education sector: Exposing an inadequate education system

This article presents and interprets Cameroonian responses to COVID-19 in the education sector. The four main challenges the Cameroonian educational authorities found themselves facing at the onset of the pandemic were (1) how to ensure continuity of formal education; (2) how to minimise exacerbation of already existing educational inequalities; (3) which tools to choose for ensuring continuity; and (4) how to enable pupils and students at exam stage to progress to the next level of their academic career. To collect relevant data for his analysis of how these challenges have been addressed, the author used three tools: documentary analysis, interviews, and digital observation of distance learning platforms. His findings form a detailed panorama of educational responses to COVID-19 in Cameroon. These include institutional, community and individual initiatives, ranging from paper-based materials to distance learning platforms, TV and radio communication tools. The implementation of these approaches, however, has revealed that the Cameroonian education system is plagued by disorganisation, educational inequalities and exclusion – problems which affect learners’ daily lives on a personal level. The structural and pedagogical deficits revealed by the findings of this study demonstrate that Cameroon must insist on two things if it wants to guarantee educational normality in the event of other similar crises, namely (1) integrating distance-learning technologies; and (2) improving access to essential socio-educational services. © 2020, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and Springer Nature B.V.