THE MINISTER OF SECONDARY EDUCATION AWARDED THE SPECIAL ADEAN AWARD FOR LEADERSHIP, EXCELLENCE AND TRANSPARENCY IN MANAGEMENT
The Minister of Secondary Education, Professor Nalova Lyonga, received The Special ADEAN AWARD for Leadership, Excellence and Transparency in Management by the Association of former students of ENSET ANNEXE of Nkolbisson, best known under the French acronym as ADEAN. The ceremony took place on Wednesday, 19 January 2022 at the Distance Education Centre in Yaounde.
Speaking through a zoom call during this solemn ceremony from Washington was Achille Ekeu, CEO and President of ADEAN AWARD. He mentioned that the organizing committee based on public data and facts obtained on ground decided to offer this special award to the Minister of Secondary Education for her actions taken to improve the educational system in Cameroon. Some of these achievements amongst others include:
- The introduction of Distance Education during the outbreak of COVID-19;
- The digitalization of the payment of fees that helps to control the school map and master the student population as well as accountability;
- The reinforcement of technical and vocational education by constructing more workshops and specialized rooms;
- The construction of more science laboratories;
- The CLEAN school program that aims at creating green spaces, water supply and water system toilets in schools;
- The construction of complete schools and bore holes;
- The installation of solar energy in areas that do not have electric energy;
- The signing of several Memoranda of Understanding (MOU)with other partners for the exchange of experiences;
- The transformation of several schools into bilingual schools, including technical bilingual schools;
- The introduction of surveillance cameras to fight insecurity in our schools;
- The signing of thousands of advancements, paying transport allowances to newly posted graduates from ENSET and École Normale Supérieure;
- The introduction of advance salaries to graduates from ENSET and École Normale Supérieure.
This award was received by the Secretary-General (SG) of the Ministry of Secondary Education, Professor Pierre Fabien Nkot, on behalf of the Minister. It was handed in the presence of top officials of the Ministry and members of the ADEAN Delegation. In his acceptance speech, the Secretary-General extended the warm greetings from the Minister and applauded the initiative. “We don’t want to become a society where, when two people meet it is to say rubbish about the third one but we should also have moments where we are celebrating our staff”, he said. He highlighted the achievements of Her Excellency Professor Nalova Lyonga and emphasized the introduction of Distance Education which was an emergency response to the outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that all students have access to education no matter their locations through digital means as she says ‘education cannot wait’. He concluded by saying that with all these achievements and reforms, ADEAN’s choice to hand over this award to the Minister of Secondary Education is grounded.
The ADEAN Award was created in 2017 by Achille Ekeu in the United States. This year is the 5th edition of the award. It includes all former students of ENSET ANNEXE of Nkolbisson-Yaounde. This ANNEXE of ENSET of the University Center of Douala then, now University of Douala was created as part of the implementation of the Cameroon-Sofati-Canada project whose objectives were to build 6 top quality Technical High Schools in various regions of the country and train high quality Technical High School teachers in Cameroon and at the University of Montreal-Canada. Achille Ekeu was part of those teachers who obtained a Mechanical Engineering Degree and a teaching degree (DIPET1) from that school in 1992.
By Drusilla Mbah E.
CELCOM/MINESEC