The Raging GCE Exam Debate (Part 2): Conscientious Intellect and UnConscious Elitism

Sasse College Students

From L'Effort Camerounais



Louis Egbe Mbua

 Most established educational institutions in Cameroon may not accept a child who may not be able to read and answer questions on very difficult literature; not having financially viable guardians and parents; and have no profound grounding in mathematical principles. Added to that, the child must be able to write comprehensively at a very high level. The writer understands that all institutions have the right to set their entry requirements, rules and regulations. However, if the main criteria for selection are limited to a small group of individuals who are sure to pass examinations at the high end, then it is obvious that the purported normal distribution and spread would not hold.

While the outstanding performance of teachers and administrators as well as the conscientious attributes of the students may be commendable, all outstanding results are to be expected. However, as discussed in Part one of this series, this provides a false picture of that particular society because there are those who may be as intelligent but  may have conditions of learning difficulties or are not financially sound in their respective backgrounds; and that those admitted already possess social and financial advantages over the entire age range in that society. This enhances the latter's resilience and unshakeable collective confidence and purpose; and that the added perceived independence of means and thought is followed by this collective purpose which will boost their academic performance far surpassing the normal level; and levels that do not conform to the much argued Bell Curve indications. Consequently, almost all  students who may sit the GCE Exams will not fall within the range of highest three percent of normal distribution spread but may reflect a different phenomenon completely outside these predictions. Therefor, the real test of a high achieving environment is when all children from all backgrounds- wealthy or poor -- are brought together, given the same opportunity complete with first class educational facilities in that institution or society.

Checks and Balances

The reasons advanced so far in explaining success and failure in the Anglo-Saxon system has been based entirely on conjecture. This debate has raged and continues to rage in England and other countries of similar educational standards. Here in the UK, letters are written in the National Press and strong opinions advanced in connection to this controversy by concerned citizens. In one of those letters, a 1960s GCE candidate posted questions on Mathematics and clasics of his time; lining them side by side with contemporary questions of similar A Level Exams of today. According to the concerned citizen, the A Level has now been “dumbed” down since the questions that were asked the young people of today were far "easier", in depth and intellectual challenge, than those his own time. While one was almost ceratinly bound to agree with him, going by the questions, it would seem that children appear to attend school earlier in this day and age than was the case in the past. Thus, it may be not be valid to compare the intellectual maturity of 20 year olds as compared to a 16 year old child sitting the same Exams; and that knowledge has advanced since the 1960s so much so that the present students are bound to have much more breadth – debatable in relation to depth -- than was previously carried by the GCE old school.

A similar comparison could be established in Cameroon. It seems that students attend school younger in the present generation; and that there is official evidence that the academic duration has been slashed from seven to six years at the primary school level; and consequently rendering those sitting the GCE younger. The problem now is whether the GCE has the same strength in depth and intellectual challenge as was expected of students 20 years ago. This is a matter of concern as students attain very high grades than is expected. Again,  in England this matter has been circumvented, if not obviated, by the introduction of a super  A* Grade in their corresponding GCSE, an equivalence of Cameroon O Levels; and the GCE A Level , the same counterpart qualifications in Cameroon. Others have gone further and introduced the International Baccalaureate, as well as what is called the IGSCE, a qualification of what experts consider as of equivalent intellectual strength as the old London GCE O Level; and which is supposedly being sat in Cameroon. It is not clear how quality control is being implemented in Cameroon. So, it is hard to reach a conclusion as to whether the Cameroon GCE has become easier than in the past two decades.

A genuine method of checking and validating the intellectual balance of the A Levels is to follow the progress of former candidates. In some schools in England, they track the performance of their students after their A Levels: which universities they went to; where they obtained work; and how they progressed 5-10 years after their A Levels. While academic qualifications are not the only factor that determines success in life, it is a strong indicator on the other hand, and arguably the most reliable pointer to their institutions’ success; and their method of teaching. There is one thing passing with very high grades based on Exams and another matter altogether if the same students were provided with an all-round intellectual armament to cope with the trials in the real world. The writer is not fully conversant with the methods used in Cameroon in terms of checks and balances at present; but my Old school in Sasse track their students after leaving the College and make adjustments in their teaching methods as appropriate to ensure that the qualifications as well as the all-round education they receive are authentic. Again, it is unclear whether the Cameroon authorities as a whole follow the students’ progress after leaving school so as to find out if the qualifications so bestowed meet the requirements they were intended to. The writer’s casual observation is that the Cameroon A Level is respected here in the UK; and that students who arrived the UK with their A Levels were capable, and able to compete internationally in British Universities. But that was two decades ago. How they fair now is a recipe for research. How they perform in Cameroon Universities is also open to scrutiny in today’s world.

It is now an open secret that major universities in the UK have been complaining about fallen the standards in relation to the students that are enrolled into their venerable institutions. Employers are in the same mould asking questions as to the quality of graduates. Who is responsible for this alleged fall of standards cannot be easily discerned. Some universities are now instituting compulsory Examinations for certain “hard” courses such as Medicine, Law, Engineering and Classics. In special cases, students with top level grades are denied – controversially -- entry into top universities on account of their “failure” to meet requirements in designed interviews and university entrance Exams. A significant number of these “unqualified” students decamp to top universities in the United States, China and Hong Kong where they excel in the disciplines they were denied places in the UK.

In Cameroon, there is the tradition of sitting entrance Exams into schools of the profession especially in Administration, Engineering and Medicine – what is usually referred to as Les Grandes Ecoles inthe French system. While this may be a fair way of selection, it is also prone to bribery and corruption. Citizens in Cameroon, especially from the English-Speaking region (Southern Cameroons), have been complaining of incompetence, corruption and other professional misconduct especially from graduates from Ecole Normale d’Administration et Magistrature (ENAM), the Higher Education institution for administration. As a result, it is difficult to assess as to whether this lapse in professional and academic standards is related to poor educational entry in A Level qualifications; or that the institution itself does not measure up to opprobrious international standards. Additionally,  the significant majority of the graduates of this institution do not venture abroad but try their hands in ready-made government jobs spoiled with facilities provided by the ordinary Cameroon tax payer. This is not to discount other very able Graduates who have gone on to prove their worth into the world.

Political  Qualifications

In 1983, the Cameroon government attempted to alter the character of the GCE qualification at both the O and A Levels. The executive text to be implemented was designed to destroy these qualifications so that the minority English-Speaking Cameroon would be dependent t on their Francophone counterparts for education as is all other aspects in daily life as in Cameroon today. It is still one of the most shameful periods in Cameroon history; that a group of people would want to jeopardise the future educational well-being of children for purely insidious political reasons. This, gladly, did not work due to stiff resistance from Anglophone students at Yaoundé, the lone University at the time, and parents of the English-speaking region. However, the clueless government was determined to get his way in other areas in this sphere. So, they attacked the Vocational qualifications of the English-Speaking region (Southern Cameroons), destroying the curriculum that was based on City & Guilds Examinations in London; began teaching in French and replaced these well-tested and authenticated qualifications with questionable French-styled qualifications that have no international standing or merit. The result has been an educational disaster on a grandiose scale. Student failure rates skyrocketed to the edges of the curvature and thousands of lives destroyed with the elite Francophone having a totally misguided of  notion of “Anglophones are not as intelligent as Francophones”. This kind of warped thinking and implementation of an educational system renders any kind of analysis on the performance of students during and after their education totally without meaning; and that failure or success rates in Exams are not solely dependent on intelligence but on other disgraceful man-made rules bent on discrimination, mind control and clear machinations.