2012 GCE Questions On Sale in Yaounde?

 

Humphrey Monono despite all odds at the GCE Board may be heading for a crash this academic year. Information reaching us from Yaounde indicates that some teachers were spotted selling GCE papers. Yet it is not clear whether it was a scam or the GCE had leaked. Newspaper reports have already started raising the alarm and the credibility of this year’s GCE examination. Notwithstanding, the state media on the other hand says all is set to ensure a hitch-free GCE examination.

However, over 142,000 candidates are expected to sit in for the 2012 Cameroon General Certificate of Education Ordinary and Advanced levels.  

With a new electronic system used in registering candidates, the registrar of the Cameroon General Certificate of Education Board, Humphrey Monono, accredits self that innovative electronic method of registering candidates has helped in reducing errors linked to the registration of candidates although some surprising loopholes were noticed. But he failed woefully to indicate how leakage will be checked and the fact that he has been mute on  the Yaounde scandal continue to create sensation around the country.

Good innovation but the doubts are many; what will candidates in Akwaya, Furawa, parts of Lebialem, Nguti, Tombel etc who have never been exposed to a basic hardware computer do? There are many other questions which I can not ask now…..especially internet availability in Cameroon not to talk of the band width strength.

Through the electronic registration system (E-registration), various examination centres forwarded to the Board Compact Discs (CDs) or Flash pens from which the latter downloaded the list of registered candidates. Humphrey Monono however noted that at the level of examination centres, they issued receipts of registration fees paid and the timetables for the individual candidates.

In spite of the E-registration system which was aimed to facilitate GCE registration, few hitches were still witnessed. According to the Registrar of the GCE Board some of the CDs could not be read, due to incompatibility with some machines. Another problem has to deal with the spellings of names and dates of birth. Humphrey Monono lamented “I do not know why at this point where the responsibility of candidates registration is given to the centres, these errors still occur.

When we were filling forms and scanning them, there were very many complaints. Now the complaints are still there”.

Furthermore, the fact that some schools mistakenly did not register some of their candidates also created problems in the registration procedure. These shortcomings notwithstanding, Humphrey Monono noted that they are not enough to stop the examination from taking place for the board is dabbling with such problems before examination kicks-off.

Besides E-registration the Board has the ambition to move on to online registration and online communication between candidates and the Board. Meanwhile within the Board itself many other organisational innovations are taking place.

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