Inclusive Education: The Road covered with Certificate Exams
Bamenda August 27, 2024 – The marriage between the Cameroon General Certificate of Education, GCE, Board and the CBC Health Services is not mere convenience, but one borne out of real need to favour candidates with various forms of disabilities, especially the blind who use braille to write the exams. These candidates suffered in the past because they could not be understood why they should bother to write the GCE in the first place; they faced all forms of stigma and disfavour – no equipment to assist them write the exams and no extra time given to compensate for their slow writing among others.
The partnership of the CBC Health Services through her Services for People with Disabilities (SPD) with the GCE Board has come to lessen the huge burden and barrier on the way of candidates with disabilities. Formerly, only a handful of students with disabilities mustered the courage to take the GCE as many of them gave up on the wayside. Today, many of them take the exams, succeeding in flying colours. The partnership is yielding fruits!
According to statistics from the Cameroon General Certificate of Education, GCE, some 51 candidates with disabilities participated in this year’s (2023/2024 academic year) examination with 31 successful, representing a success rate of 67.39%.
Whilst the journey for Moses Njong, a candidate with vision impairment who succeeded the GCE Ordinary Level this year was a GCE “with ease,” it was a rough ride for Chiambah Daniel decades ago. Chiambah Daniel, a teacher of braille recalls that in 1989, he was the lone blind candidate who sat the GCE exams. According to him, the journey has witnessed a significant shift preceded by an avalanche of challenges.
“It was an atmosphere of fear writing the GCE as the lone and first blind candidate sitting for the exams in the North West Province then. I was the first to write the First School Leaving Certificate exams, and the first to write the GCE as a visually impaired. During these exams, I was isolated in a room for hours where I waited for my question papers to be brailed. I had fear …this affected me psychologically,” Daniel recounts affectionately.
Going through the education journey as a visually impaired for Chiambah was a lonely one that he had as motivation, the push from his siblings to make a name for their family.
“In my family, I was the last of 17 children, and the only one who was doing well in school, and so my siblings sacrificed all to see me through school even after I became blind in 1983.” Chiambah lost his sight to glaucoma when he was just 11 years old.
Even after losing his sight this early, the fuel to hone education in him was steadfast. In his community and time, there were no education facilities for the blind until he learned of the CBC Health Services Integrated School for the Blind [today’s Inclusive School and Braille Centre] Kumbo.
Proud of the support he gained from family and teachers, his hurdles navigating certificate examinations were uphill. “Several times I could not finish my work due to time constraints, the brailed scripts came with errors…all these affected my performance negatively”.
The journey of improving access to education for learners with disabilities has been a tussle of consistent effort; disrupting social [mis]constructs, advocacy, capacity building and systems strengthening for improved life for persons with disabilities, affirms Awa Jaques Chirac, Coordinator of the Services for People with Disabilities of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services. He holds firmly that the paradigm shifts experienced in the education landscape of Cameroon – especially in the English Subsystem, have been head-on reversals through awareness raising, political will, revision of exam policy, infrastructure, and capacity building among other inputs.
“When learners with visual impairments faced untold discrimination in participating in end of course exams, it was a function of ignorance. The changes we can now make reference to are a function of significant shifts in paradigms at all levels,” posits Awa Jacques Chirac.
He adds that “…families are now aware that a child with vision impairment has opportunities and so should be sent to school. Before, families did not perceive it that way. On the demand side of things, it means even if you created opportunities for learners with vision impairment to meaningfully participate in end of course exams, that would not have happened.”
The Cameroon General Certificate of Education (GCE) is arguably the most prestigious and relevant exams in the English subsystem of education in Cameroon. Defining a futuristic educational growth in Cameroon is largely dependent on these exams. By partnering with the Cameroon GCE Board, the SPD has made monumental investments to support this institution in running its exams.
“Acceptance of creating special centres, acceptance of braille embossers, and using the technology to braille exams scripts in advance is magical,” Awa says. “That act of fairness was so stabilizing for the candidates with vision impairment, psychologically, it was transformatory.” Evidently, these milestones are emboldened further by revision of exams policies, considering the specificities of candidates with disabilities, establishment of five special centres – expected to increase to six this academic year 2024/2025, introduction of stripes to support learners who would otherwise not write.
Never again would education for learners with print disabilities in Cameroon be a struggle likened to a journey of a ‘Violent taking it by force’. With significant investments made by SPD and its partners – notably the Christian Blind Mission and Liliane Fonds in the education subsystem of Cameroon, chances of persons with vision impairment giving up on education have been immeasurably narrowed.
Moses Njong who took braille classes in the Inclusive School and Braille Centre, Kumbo offered a Thanksgiving Mass on August 4, 2024 at the Kumbo Cathedral for his outstanding performance at the GCE, succeeding in eight of the nine subjects he sat for at the Ordinary Level.
His hope to continue his High School education is charged by the ease with which the exams were accessible for a candidate with special needs like him this year. “From childhood when I started using braille, the GCE was the easiest and well-done examinations when it comes to braille. It was very accessible from my experience”.
Moses’ testimony is a reassuring pat on the back of the management staff of SPD and the partnership with Cameroon GCE Board, which Awa Jacques Chirac also credits on the timeless support of CBM and Liliane Fonds. “These are partners working and supporting CBC Health Services so closely both in terms of strengthening systems to be inclusive but also supporting learners with specific didactic materials and means to be able to utilize whatever services are made inclusive. Their investments are valued in gold”
After the reverberations, it is time for the business of progress. “At the end of every exam session, we do a review of the process on the request of the Registrar of the Board before the launch of the next session in October, and we share and adopt recommendations to continuously improve the inclusivity of the exams, mindful of the local context.” By and large, the GCE certificate examination is now opening new horizons to persons with disabilities unlike before.
