Educational Research and Policy Reforms in Cameroon

Dr. TAMAJONG Vukeh Elizabeth
Maitre de Recherche
Email: vukehtamajong@yahoo.com

Dr. TOHNAIN Lengha Norbert
Email: tohnole@yahoo.com
Researcher

Summary
A lot has been done on policy research and education in Cameroon to strengthen decision making on matters concerning the education and integration of street children, the education of children living with disabilities and other minority groups like the Mbororos and the pigmies just to name a few. On the other aspect of education studies have been carried out on citizenship and human rights education, the use of New Information and Communications Technology (NICTs) as an educational tool to fight HIV/AIDS in the community and at all levels of the society. The non-formal educational aspect to foster learning by doing has also been one of the research works on education that has impacted a lot of skills in the community especially at this era of professionalization.  A lot of policy reforms are being undertaken by the government on the recommendations from the field findings of the above cited studies on education.

These reforms which are initiated by the results of the studies are formulated and applied by the specialized ministries’ under the global supervision of the ministries of Social Affairs, Basic Education, Secondary education, Women and empowerment in collaboration with the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation. The civil society and non-governmental organizations also play a vital role in these policy reforms since they are those in contact with the population or the grass root actors. 

From the field results, the Ministry of Social Affairs is initiating a global return of street children to their homes. For instances nineteen out of about four hundred street children have gone back to normal schools as an outcome of policy taken by the government in their favour. This is making a lot of impact as many of them are integrated in the homes and in the educational system. Human rights education is being introduced in the Cameroonian education system as a result of studies carried out in this domain.  There is equally a global encouragement of parents to adopt responsible parenthood strategies to curb the alarming increase of street children in the country. Also, results obtained from policy studies have led to a global awareness about HIV/AIDS and hence, leading many citizens to adopt responsible behavior in the fight against the pandemic. The new information and communication technologies are vastly used in the country in the fight against this pandemic due especially to the results of the study on “the use of new information and communication technologies in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Cameroon. The findings and the recommendations of these studies have globally impacted government policies in Cameroon.