Ahead of new school year: Higher Education Minister insists on digitalisation of training in universities.

The Minister who is also Chancellor of Academic Orders, gave the charge Tuesday in Yaounde. He was speaking while chairing the 2024 University Coordination Commission meeting held in Yaounde.

The meeting came days to the start of the 2024/2025 academic year in the university milieu.

The gathering assembled all heads of the country’s 11 state universities, representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office, the ministries of Finance, that of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Public Service and Administrative Reform, Secondary Education, Scientific Research and Innovation amongst others.

It was also attended by the Secretary General at the Ministry of Higher Education, Prof Wilfred Gabsa.

While welcoming participants to the meeting, Minister Fame Ndongo explained that the session was “structured around concrete concerns considered fundamental parameters, not only for the materialisation of the concepts of University-Enterprise and Student-Entrepreneur, but also push to the for the digitalization revolution ongoing in the entire Higher Education System”.

This, the minister added, is thanks to the “New Higher Education Policy promulgated into Law by the President of the Republic, Head of State, on July 25, 2024, and to the E-National Higher Education Network project”.

The member of government disclosed that issues to be handled during the meeting include “the digital transformation of the Higher Education ecosystem: an update on the operation of the University Digital Development Centres; the issue of ‘University-Enterprise and Student-Entrepreneur”.

Reacting to the call of the minister on the need for digitalization of the training process, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea, UB, Prof Horace Manga Ngomo, said the state university was far advanced in the implementation of the guidelines.

He said digitalisation and entrepreneurship are key priorities for the institution.

“For us at the University of Buea, digital transformation didn’t start with the construction of the digital centres. The centre only came to intensify the digitalisation of the university processes. Here, we are talking about the processing of marks, delivery of certificates and the keeping of all data in the system,” Prof Horace Manga explained. 

He continued that: “The finality of training is that the students should end up having their certificates. We have a retrieval system through which we provide those results to any establishment. At the level of learning, we have e-learning platforms particularly when COVID-19 came. Even before COVID, our education department had distance learning where courses were taught to students who are studying far away from the university”.

Established by decree No.93/027 of 19 January 1993 on provisions common to universities, the mission of the University Coordination Commission is to examine problems relating to the coordination and harmonization of activities of state universities.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3247 of Wednesday October 02, 2024