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MINESEC and iPLANS SA Partner to Give Technical and Vocational Education a New Momentum

Henceforth, training for students in Tertiary Sciences and Technology will be commensurate with the standards needed in the business world, thanks to Pack Education software package developed by iPLANS SA.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) thereto was signed on Friday, 14 October 2022, at the Distance Education Centre, by Prof Nalova Lyonga, Minister of Secondary Education, and Joseph Kamgue Takougang, CEO of iPLANS SA, a national technology company.

Through this partnership, the Ministry of Secondary Education (MINESEC) materialises its aspiration to make digitalisation an integral part of the teaching and learning process in Technical and Vocational Education. The end goal here is to enable learners in Tertiary Sciences and Technology acquire digital skills so that they can smoothly integrate the business world. With this, the knowledge gap which is often identified as the major shortcoming in technical education products will be addressed.

iPLANS SA has been approved following a selective process, as having the appropriate technology and know-how to support MINESEC in this endeavour.

The technology company will have to install Pack Education in technical and vocational schools with specialties in Tertiary Sciences and Technology, as well as provide training to both teachers and students in its use. Pack Education is a customized and integrated management software package developed by iPLANS SA to ease training and knowledge transfer in some technical education trades.

Talking during the ceremony, Joseph Kamgue Takougang, CEO of iPLANS SA, presented the added-value of the partnership for both his company and MINESEC: “on our part, more jobs will be created and the economy will grow. From MINESEC side, students will be better trained and their insertion into the professional world [will be] easier. Teachers will all enjoy the simplicity of teaching exactly what students will use later in their professional life.”

Speaking on behalf of Prof Nalova Lyonga, Minister of Secondary Education, the Secretary-General, Prof Fabien Nkot, used this opportunity to comb through the series of innovations spearheaded by Prof Nalova Lyonga, following the very high instructions of the Head of State, His Excellency Paul Biya, one of which is to promote Technical Education in the country. He hailed the fair and competitive process initiated by Prof Nalova Lyonga that led to the selection of iPLANS SA and urged “the people of iPLANS SA as well as collaborators in MINESEC to draw all the benefits from this collaboration”.

Aimé Ngidjol, Senior Staff/CELCOM

MODERNISATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION

Prof Nalova Lyonga and Lord Jonathan Peter Marland brainstorm on ways to carry forward Distance Education.

This was during the audience the Minister of Secondary Education, Prof Nalova Lyonga, granted to the visiting President of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, Lord Jonathan Peter Marland, on Wednesday, 11 October 2022 at the Distance Education Centre.

During the audience, Prof Nalova Lyonga and her high-profile guest exchanged views on the support the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council could provide to the Ministry to further modernise Secondary Education through Distance Education. After giving the background of the implementation of Distance Education and the efforts made so far in this light, MINESEC Boss tabled some of the areas in which cooperation with the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council is highly expected.

These include the setting-up of ten technical and vocational digital high schools in Cameroon and the strengthening of the Distance Education Centre. With these, the Ministry of Secondary Education intends to reinforce the distance education project and promote digital trades in technical and vocational education.

This can be achieved through capacity development for teachers involved in virtual teaching as well as through the provision of infrastructures and equipment adequate for Distance Education. With 8,000 lessons prepared so far by the Distance Education Centre in just 3 years and given the high penetration rate of technology in Cameroon, the groundwork is laid for the sustainable implementation of Distance Education.

Lord Jonathan Peter Marland congratulated Prof Nalova Lyonga for putting in place the Distance Education Centre to embrace the revolution imposed in learning by the Covid-19 outbreak. He further acknowledged the challenge of educating and generating skills for the massive younger generation, especially in the Commonwealth, where 60 percent of the Commonwealth population of 2.5 billion is under 30 years old.

The President of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council pledged to bring together the wide range of organisations and Universities his Council is cooperating with throughout the Commonwealth to address the needs and expectations of the Ministry in modernising Distance Education. For a start, MINESEC officials will have in-depth discussions on the matter with the officials of a UK-based education technology organisation who are accompanying Lord Jonathan Peter Marland.

Aimé Ngidjol

Senior Staff/CELCOM

A Day Full of Thoughts and Festivities

As on every 5 October, teachers all over the national territory celebrated the 28^th edition of World Teachers’ Day under the theme: “The Transformation of Education Begins with Teachers.”

Activities marking this year’s celebration began on Monday, 26 September 2022, with the hosting of MINESEC and MINEDUB officials on the CRTV National station. It went on the following days in both ministries with sensitization campaign on health issues, gastronomic fair, athletic walk, sport encounters, a round table conference, exhibition of teaching materials and culminated on 5 October 2022.

In Yaounde, the Multipurpose Sports Complex played host to the Grand Meeting of 5 October. The program of this Day featured three main interventions, including reading of UNESCO’s message by Paul Raymond Coustere, UNESCO Regional Director for Central Africa, academic discourse by a teacher on the theme and the speech by the Minister of Basic Education, Prof Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa.

Speaking on behalf of the Government, Minister Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, presiding officer of this year’s celebration, presented education as a “powerful vector of change that improves health, livelihoods, contributes to social stability, stimulates productivity, innovation, entrepreneurship, as well as long term economic growth.”

He praised teachers and requested the audience to observe a moment of silence in memory of teachers who passed away since the last edition. He reiterated the continuous efforts made by the Government in improving the condition of teachers in spite of all the challenges faced. During this ceremony, over 100 teachers were awarded Academic Palms.

After the ceremony at the Multipurpose Sports Complex, officials of the Ministry of Secondary Education ended their Day rejoicing around a cocktail offered by Prof Nalova Lyonga, Minister of Secondary Education. The Minister who was assisted by the Secretary of State in charge of Teacher’s Training and the Secretary-General seized this opportunity to discuss and share a bite with her staff some of whom were awarded Academic Palms. Rendez-vous is taken for the next edition in 2023.

ABILAMEKOU BADJEL / CADRE CELCOM

LET’S EMBRACE THE AGE OF THE MOBILE AND AGILE CLASSROOM

Professor Nalova Lyonga encourages stakeholders in education to adopt the digitalisation of teaching so to advance with the modern times.

     The 2022/2023 school year in the Ministry of Secondary Education (MINESEC) will be marked by the improvement of the training provision through a hybrid teaching model encompassing Distance Education and in-presence teaching.

     This is the key message, Prof Nalova Lyonga, Minister of Secondary Education, delivered to the Education Community during the ceremony marking the solemn pedagogic resumption of the 2022/2023 school year. All high-ranking officials of the Ministry, including the Secretary-General, Prof Fabien Nkot, the Inspector General of Education (IGE), Jean Paul Marcellin Mebada, the Inspector General of Services (IGS), Akat Fidelis Etta, Directors, Regional Delegates and principals gathered around the Minister of Secondary Education at Government Bilingual High School Essos, on Monday, 29 August 2022.

    The solemn pedagogic resumption of the 2022/2023 school year centred on the theme “Digitalisation of teaching: an effective and efficient determining factor for the provision of training at the Ministry of Secondary Education” provided MINESEC officials with an ideal platform to review the strides made so far with the Distance Education and to discuss the way forward for an increased use of digitalisation for teaching purposes.

     In her keynote address, Professor Nalova Lyonga instructed teachers to embrace Distance Education and to articulate it with the in-presence teaching mode so as to help learners bridge the technology gap towards advanced countries and achieve greater and better results needed to live in the 21^st century.

     In the same vein, Jean Paul Marcellin Mebada highlighted the numerous advantages of digitalisation in the pedagogic follow-up of learners while Inspectors Coordinator-General, Jean Pierre Adjaba Biwoli, Philémon Ndi Sara and Fomboh Julius Fombutu, expounded respectively on the situation of Distance Education in Cameroon, how digitalisation is shaping classroom activities and evaluation. The Regional Delegate for the South-West, Mbuah Hannah Etonde, presented the contribution of digitalisation in building educational resilience in violence-prone areas.

     All these presentations acknowledged that the digitalisation of teaching is ushering in the era of the mobile and agile classroom for which secondary school teachers should be prime movers, hence this urgent call made by the Minister of Secondary Education: “My colleagues, we have a task to be as good as the first. Well, we might not all get the goals at the same time, but we shall try; we shall try to do the best that we can. Digitalisation gives us the opportunity to be able to do things that people cannot do. We bring the machines to the fore to achieve as much as we can achieve. Welcome the machines and you will find that you are having almost the same results as those in the West”.

                                                                                           A. Ngidjol

                                                                                   Celcom/MINESEC