French baccalaureate results lead to drop in HE enrolments

A sharp drop in the 2024 French baccalaureate exam pass rate, which provides entry into higher education, appears to be pushing down the student admission rate into public and private universities in Cameroon, according to officials.

As the online pre-registration into different state universities wrapped up on 30 August for the 2024-25 academic year, different public universities have reported a drop in first years. This comes after a drop of almost 40 percentage points in the French baccalaureate pass rate, from 75.73% in 2023 to 37.26% in 2024.

University authorities have admitted that the pre-registration traffic in the French-medium University of Yaoundé I, as in other French-speaking universities, is low compared to previous years.

“Although we are yet to come out with the final admission list, the pre-registration data shows we have [about half] the numbers compared to previous years,” Remy Magloire Etoua, the rector of the University of Yaoundé I, told University World News.

“The University of Yaoundé I, like all state universities, usually does not admit all those who do pre-registration. The final list of admission is published after careful selection, depending on whether the applicants meet the criteria set by the different universities and their departments,” he explained.

“As a result of the massive failure rate, it is obvious we may have just half or slightly above half of the 5,000 [first-year] students we used to have in the past,” he said.

Academics say the enrolment figures are not expected to change at the two English-medium universities of Buea and Bamenda, because the equivalent of the General Certificate of Education, or GCE, results were encouraging, with a 68.15% pass rate.

A true reflection of performance?

Academic experts have warned that the decline in the pass rate would cause higher education applications to plummet.

“The high failure rate will certainly impact the admission numbers in the different French-speaking higher education institutions this academic year,” Professor Adolphe Minkoa She, rector of the University of Yaoundé II (Soa campus), told University World News earlier.

“[The university’s Soa campus], which had an enrolment of over 4,000 first-year students in 2023-24, may evidently not have half that number this year,” he added.

Commenting over state radio shortly after the publication of the results, Cameroon’s Minister of Secondary Education, Pauline Nalova Lyonga, expressed regret at the massive failure, commending [the directorate of examination, competitions and certification, or DECC of the ministry and] the Baccalaureate Board for the rigour in the evaluation exercise.

“The results are a true reflection of the student performance. The government has opted for quality education and the exams board has respected that policy. Better we have fewer, but quality, students admitted into universities than a large number of below-average students,” she said.

An end to ‘exam fixing’

The high failure rate followed instructions from the minister to the Baccalaureate Board to stop ‘results fixing’ when results are poor, a practice experts say has compromised the credibility of certificates issued by the board.

Academic stakeholders have claimed that major mark adjustments had created the public impression that the results were good.

Media reports have regularly criticised adjustment practices, which academics said led to students’ poor quality performance at university level.

However, the minister said, at a news conference before the exam this year, that she had instructed the board to put an end to such practices.

She said this followed complaints by university authorities of the below-standard performance of some newly admitted students.

University experts and other stakeholders saluted the minister’s decision, noting that academic excellence had been relegated to the background because of the adjustment practices.

“The minister’s decision has been welcomed. Academic excellence cannot be sacrificed on the altar of mediocrity,” Professor Owona Nguini of the University of Yaoundé II told University World News.

Improved security

In reaction to the poor results, Barrister Désiré Sikati, a lawyer at the Cameroon Bar and head of communication at the opposition Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun also commended the minister for the strict measures in the conduct of the 2024 exams.

The examinations have also been characterised by strict measures to curb irregularities.

Teachers in different examination centres in Yaoundé and the minister, during a visit to some centres, said the exams sessions were hitch-free, with no cases of fraud or leakage.

“The supervision of exams this year was rigid as instructed by the minister, with security police also dispatched at different centres to ensure a hitch-free session,” Kum Rogers, a history teacher with Mario College in Yaoundé, told University World News.

Examination malpractices in Cameroon have been criminalised, and students have to adhere to the laws governing exams or face disciplinary sanctions.

Some of the students who failed are optimistic that the results will be better in the future with more hard work.

“The rigour in the conduct of the exams this year, leading to mass failure, is painful but, at the same time, a big lesson for us students to work harder. I am hopeful that, with more efforts, the results will be better next year,” Edwin Lemoufuet, one of the students of the Government Bilingual High School Mendong, Yaoundé, who failed the baccalaureate exams this year, told University World News.