Flagship university is in danger of floundering

Christiana Mbengo passed her baccalaureat with flying colours. But when her civil servant father and petty trader mother told her that lean times meant her only chance of a university education was to attend Yaounde, Cameroon's oldest and biggest university, Christiana broke down in tears.

She pleaded with them to find money so that she could register with the private Jesuit-run Catholic university.

The reason for her distress was the poor reputation of state-run Yaounde University.

Student protests over financial and administrative mismanagement at the capital's university led to its decentralisation in 1993. Some 50,000 students and teaching staff were arbitrarily dispersed into four new universities in the provincial towns of Ngaoundere, Buea, Dschang and Douala.

Stephen Ako, an embittered physics lecturer, said: "Many Cameroonians thought that decongesting Yaounde would lead to better standards. We now know better."

In order to improve finances, the Paul Biya government accepted a World Bank formula for financing university education. Under a structural adjustment programme, an annual registration fee of FFr500 (Pounds 54) was introduced and the number of scholarships cut.

The money this released was to be invested in equipping laboratories, libraries and lecture theatres. But this did not happen. There is still not enough equipment, students sit on the floor for lectures, toilets are broken and teachers are badly paid.

The Catholic university, whose fees are not as high has more facilities and better teaching and research equipment.

At the annual conference for vice-chancellors of French-speaking universities in Africa, Jean Messi, vice-chancellor of the University of Yaounde, could not hide his frustration at the indifference of the private and public sectors' attitude towards the funding of research.

"Our local businessmen give out research on certain projects which at times we have even successfully undertaken and completed in our laboratories. The state does not have confidence in our capability to carry out research," he confessed.

When he was asked why the university budgets annually for FFr800,000 for science research yet this money is not made available to researchers, he refused to answer the question.

The Catholic student association has accused the university of not assisting students. Another serious dent to its image is the refusal of French universities to accept Yaounde undergraduate degrees. Students who want to register for masters in France have to repeat their final year and pass the exam before entry.