The United Kingdom says it will end study visas for students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, and work visas for Afghans, amid a rise in anti-immigration sentiment ⁠in the country.

The UK Home Office said in a statement on Tuesday that “an ’emergency brake’ on visas has been imposed for the first time on nationals from four countries”, following a surge in asylum claims by students on study visas.

The Home Office said the number of asylum applications by students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan had “rocketed” by more than 470 percent between 2021 and 2025.

“Britain will always provide ⁠refuge to people fleeing war and persecution, but our visa ⁠system must not be ⁠abused,” Secretary of State for the Home Department Shabana Mahmood said.

“That is why I am taking the unprecedented decision to refuse visas for those nationals seeking to exploit our generosity,” Mahmood said.

Migration has become a major issue in UK politics with the hard-right Reform UK surging in opinion polls with its anti-immigration stance.

In a bid to assuage public sentiment, which has hardened on migration and stem the rise of the Reform UK party, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has tightened the asylum process and sped up the deportations of those who arrive illegally.

The UK’s Press Association (PA) said the visa ban will be officially introduced via an immigration rules change on Thursday, and Home Secretary Mahmood is expected to lay out a tougher asylum process in a speech on the same day.

According to the PA, in plans already flagged by the government, new rules are expected to come into force that will see asylum seekers in the UK face a review of their refugee status every 30 months, in what is seen as a way to make the country less attractive for those seeking asylum.

The Home Office said that although the government has “reduced student asylum claims by 20 percent over the course of 2025, further action is needed.

Source: Aljazeera

Secondary Education Minister Nalova Lyonga on February 23 published a list of 3,442 teachers ordered to report to “door 507 bis” of her ministry within fourteen days. Those concerned must present “supporting documents confirming their current administrative status, failing which they will be simply and outright removed from the state payroll,” she said.

The summons follows a data collection exercise conducted by the Ministry of Finance through Cameroon’s airports. An analysis of travel records showed that the officials had traveled outside Cameroon in recent years. According to sources familiar with the matter, the objective is now to verify that they have returned to the country and are effectively present at their assigned posts.

Emigration to Canada in the Background

The operation comes amid continued emigration, particularly to Canada. In recent years, many Cameroonian teachers have left their posts to seek better opportunities abroad while continuing to receive salaries in Cameroon. For the state, the issue is also fiscal: such situations create budgetary losses and weaken the continuity of public education services.

Removing teachers who have emigrated to Canada or other countries from the payroll is part of the broader Physical Headcount of State Personnel (Coppe). Launched in 2018, the initiative aims to eliminate public employees who are illegally listed on the state payroll.

According to the Ministry of Finance, Coppe has already led to the removal of 10,000 fictitious public employees from the payroll, generating annual budget savings of about CFA30 billion since 2019. On November 27, 2025, at the National Assembly, Public Service Minister Joseph Lé also announced that, under the same operation, around 6,000 civil servants had been dismissed from the public service following disciplinary proceedings.

Source: Business in Cameroon

After nearly three years of suspension, entrance exams for the Higher Teacher Training Colleges (ENS) and Higher Technical Teacher Training Colleges (ENSET) will officially resume for the 2025–2026 academic year. The announcement was made by Higher Education Minister Jacques Fame Ndongo in a statement signed on January 13, 2026. According to the document, the decision follows directives from the head of state aimed at revitalizing teacher training nationwide.

To frame the relaunch, the Ministry of Higher Education (Minesup) issued 32 official decrees detailing application procedures and eligibility requirements. Candidates are required to submit a complete application file, including an application form, certified copies of academic diplomas, proof of Cameroonian nationality, identity documents, and, where applicable, medical certificates. The ministry warns that any incomplete application will be automatically rejected.

Eligibility criteria are also clearly defined. Applicants must hold the required diplomas for the targeted program, comply with the maximum age limits set by decree, provide authentic documents, and meet the standards of conduct and integrity required by Minesup. Jacques Fame Ndongo urged candidates to carefully review the decrees in order to prepare their applications “under the best possible conditions.”

Entrance exams for the ENS and ENSET had been suspended since 2023 for budgetary reasons and replaced by admission based solely on application files. The text notes that this system did not guarantee fairness or effective integration into the civil service. On November 6, 2025, during his swearing-in ceremony, President Paul Biya announced the return of the exams, reiterating that youth development is a strategic priority of his new term.

The resumption comes amid high youth unemployment, at a time when access to professional training and public-sector jobs remains a key challenge. The decision is presented as an expression of the president’s stated intention to expand concrete opportunities for training and professional integration for young Cameroonians.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Cameroon’s government has relaunched the recruitment of 3,000 primary school teachers through the Programme d’Appui à la Réforme de l’Éducation au Cameroun (Parec). The recruitment represents the seventh phase of the third contractualization program for preschool and primary school teachers.

The program targets candidates holding a CAPIEMP certificate issued no later than 2020 and aged 40 or below as of December 31, 2025. “The test is open to all CAPIEMP 2020 holders and to holders from previous years, whether they participated in prior recruitment phases or not,” the official launch order signed by the Minister of Basic Education and the Minister of Public Service states.

Testing Schedule and Background

Cameroon last conducted a similar recruitment in 2024, hiring 3,000 teachers. For this phase, the tests are set for February 14, 2026.

Parec has been implemented since 2018 with financial support from the World Bank. The program’s primary objective is to improve the allocation of government-recruited teachers across public primary schools. Its initial budget of CFA78 billion increased to CFA137.2 billion, and the implementation period extended from 2019–2023 to 2024–2026.

Source: Business in Cameroon

I recently heard on the grapevine that the indefatigable women who graced the paths of the all girls secondary school named after Our Lady of the Holy Rosary raised over one hundred thousand dollars during their AGM to renovate their alma mater. This is an incredible milestone. This is a testament, an eloquent one to the deep appreciation each member has of the role that institution played in their lives. Never forget that this used to be the lone Catholic girls school in the South West Region. In fact, it is the first girls secondary school in Cameroon. For each decade of the rosary, I would like to celebrate ten OPSAN Characteristics. If your mother, sister, wife, friend, colleague is an OPSAN, check this out.

OPSANS are proud, I mean very proud of their alma mater. I don’t want any controversy but if you did not go to QRC Okoyong or Lourdes, pray for your parents. The envy of every child. Between the 60’s and 90’s, if you didn’t have a girl friend in one of these two schools you were playing in third division League. These girls and women have earned their stripes. After all, they claim Mary, the Mother of God as theirs. Please am talking of Catholic schools oh!

Next, OPSANS are very enterprising. They are very business oriented. The Bible tells us Joseph, Mary’s husband was a carpenter but tells us nothing of Mary’s occupation. Don’t mind that bible. Show me an OPSAN who is not entrepreneurial and I can bet you she is OPS – Okoyong Past Student but not an OPSAN.

Third, they are very generous. If you are drawing up a list of donors and you don’t have an OPSAN on your list, then you are barely scratching the surface. They know how to give! They learnt from the generosity of Our Lady who so graciously accepted to take the risk to become the mother of God.

They are prayerful. If you know an OPSAN who doesn’t know how to pray especially the rosary, she needs deliverance. Those who want to, are great prayer warriors and those who don’t have time for it, just do not have time. If you have problems and do not have an OPSAN prayer warrior, you are toast.

Their school motto is semper fidelis – Always Faithful speaks to a quality that is so rare to find today. If you are looking for partners who can be faithful, if don’t get an OPSAN, na you know! Don’t ask me if I have one? The answer is no! Why not? I knew this late. But I hail, OPSANS. They know how to remain faithful in marriage. I know what am talking about. I know two of my SHESAN brothers married to OPSANS and a Birocolexsan married to an OPSAN. If one cocoyam can spoil a whole pot then I don’t need to know many OPSAN girls to draw my conclusion. If your experience is different, write your own. Even though, I guess many more OPSANS are married to SOBANS as LESANS are to SHESANS. If you want to argue, check Dr Omer Yembe and Faustina Yembe.

Hmmm. Who sent me to take on ten and am only on the fifth and already doing “cherchez le mot.” The devil is a liar…

These women are Queens! So “show-show” for them is just normal. Remember we have women, ladies and then queens. They are classy and classic! You must be of a certain class to go to QRC. “Amba” has pressed spoil on this but nothing can take away the fact that they imbibe and exude the Queenship of Mary. When you go to a school named after The Queen you cannot be anything else but Queens.

They like gossips, fights but remain true sisters. We watched the “palapala” that led to a divided kingdom of OPSA America. Beneath this was the cry for excellence, each wanting to outsmart each other in doing the best. That’s why that conflict did not last long. If you doubt it check your sister Alumni mothered too by Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary. Theirs is thawing now but you blazed the trail and led by example and today you are better, bigger and stronger. Over one hundred thousand dollars raised in 2025? That’s strength, Unity, generosity, Queenship and you name it.

OPSANS know how to enjoy themselves. I have often wondered how these women trained by Rev Sisters ended up not becoming Rev sisters? I know an OPSAN nun, a no- nonsense sister who hired me and fired me after one year and then I chose her to be my spiritual director. How did this story end up here? Have you attended an OPSAN party? Try! You go dance “Bayangi” dance and enjoy yourself until…I don’t know why they are not organizing more parties?

They are roses and like every rose they have thorns. You cannot have one without the other. Give them their roses!

Tenth…. Add yours! Let me spare you: They know how to organize.

Happy Feast Day OPSANS

By Bobe Lambert Mbom

Ogbe Abunaw has joined the long list of Cameroonian academics that have successfully conquered education home and abroad after he bagged a PhD in Strategic Management from the Swiss School of Business Research in Zurich, Switzerland.

Dr Ogbe Abunaw said it was not an easy journey from the University of Buea Cameroon where he earned his BA with honors in History and Political Science to the University of Bolton, UK where he earned his MA in Human Resource Management to Harvard University, USA where he again earned a Professional Development Certificate in Management and Leadership.

Speaking exclusively to Cameroon Concord News, Dr Ogbe Abunaw said he remains deeply grateful to his mother Hon Rose Abunaw for her unwavering love, and support. Dr Ogbe furthered that this achievement belongs to her and to his entire family; friends and mentors who helped turn his dream into reality.

More than a personal milestone, Dr Ogbe Abunaw’s research carries value for the community and the global stage: it translates rigorous research into practical strategies that local businesses can adopt, informs community development and public policy toward more sustainable growth, and strengthens research visibility through international collaboration and elevates the discourse of strategic management on a global platform, and equips students, practitioners, and policymakers with evidence-based frameworks, mentoring, and opportunities to translate insight into impact wherever they are.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Soter Agbaw-Ebai

As Cameroon’s English-speaking regions grapple with a devastating separatist violence and economic collapse, Catholic schools are launching a bold shift toward technical education to transform jobless graduates into community “problem solvers.”

The Bishops and Catholic Education Secretaries of the Bamenda Episcopal Province – which covers the Anglophone regions – announced the strategic pivot during their August 18 Provincial Council of Education meeting that was held on the sidelines of the 78th Ordinary Meeting of Bishops of the Episcopal Conference taking place in Bamenda from Aug. 16-22.

Moving away from theoretical curricula that “churn out job seekers,” Catholic schools will now prioritize technology and engineering, which emphasize hands-on, problem-based learning that encourage students to apply their knowledge to real-world situations.

Father Charles Ngouobi, the Catholic Education Secretary for the Archdiocese of Bamenda said the diocese has opted for that shift that could “bring major change in the country by introducing technical and tertiary education into our secondary schools.”

His words echo the desperation of university graduates who told Crux they “live hand to mouth, barely able to feed themselves.”

Alphonse Mbidzenyuy, a lay Christian youth in the same diocese graduated from the University of Yaoundé with a master’s degree in history. Today, he washes cars to survive.

“Academic degrees don’t mean a thing in Cameroon today,” he told Crux. Earlier this year, some 200 PhD holders staged a demonstration in the capital Yaoundé, complaining that they hadn’t been recruited into the civil service. Many, like Mbidzenyuy, have deferred to doing menial jobs to keep body and soul together.

The rate of unemployment in Cameroon looks low, at just 3.51 percent. In urban centers, however, the situation is dire, with between 24 percent – 35 percent of youth unemployment. All of these still mask a deeper problem of under-employment and a large informal sector.

“If you look around town today, in Bamenda, for example, you find that we have many boys who are bike riders.  And it will embarrass you to know that some of these boys have master’s degrees,” Ngouobi said.

“Therefore, we have decided to go technical with the belief that when these children graduate, they will be able to employ not just themselves but also create jobs for others. And we want to implement a system also that will be able to enable students who are in the general education, especially the science students, to be able to make a bridge from general education to technical education,” the priest said.

Father Edward Siani, the Catholic Education Secretary for the Mamfe Diocese in the country’s South West region, explained further that Catholic education “is about the formation of the whole person.”

“And we are trying as much as possible, be it from the kindergarten, to form kids, to form people who will be catalysts of change in the community where they find themselves. That is, we start helping them to be problem solvers in the community,” he said.

The radical switch to technical education, according to Archbishop Andrew Nkea of Bamenda came because he listened to the Christians and they said they wanted to pivot from grammar schools to technical schools.

“The people told me, Bishop, we don’t want any more grammar schools here. We want technical schools. So I have St. Andrew’s Technical College. We have opened St. Peter and Paul Technical College in Ndop. We are opening another technical college in Bambui. And we are adding a technical section to St. Joseph school, Mankon,” Nkea told Crux.

“My focus in this diocese is on technical education. I keep insisting that China and the other developed economies did not develop because they knew History and Geography. They made progress because they trained the children to use their hands and create employment for themselves,” he explained.

The archbishop said it was critical for Cameroon as a country to rethink its educational system, noting that Catholic schools in his diocese will start producing engineers “at very young ages.”

He cited the case of a young boy who used bamboo to make his car powered with batteries, and which he used a remote control to drive it.

“These are brains wasting in Africa, and yet our educational system cannot tap these brains and that is why my focus in the archdiocese of Bamenda is technical education,” Nkea said.

The Provincial Council of Education meeting was also used to assess the performance of Catholic schools in the Episcopal Province over the past year.

Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo noted that the 2024/25 academic year was a resounding success, given the performance of Catholic schools at the General Certificate of Education Examinations.

“Our schools performed exceedingly well in the last academic year, with many of them scoring a hundred per cent at the GCE examinations,” he said.

However, he regretted that the continuing separatist violence in several parts of the region doesn’t create the perfect environment for children to learn.

Nkuo complained about problems with infrastructure, explaining that most school infrastructure have dilapidated, some have been destroyed by the conflict.

Source: Crux

About 300 civilians were forcibly displaced from Banga-Bakundu in Cameroon’s Southwest Region in June, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The U.N. agency reported that the civilians moved to nearby communities, including Banga, Muyuka, Bombe-Bakundu, and Mbalangi. OCHA said the displacement was a result of the community’s “strategic position,” which has made it a flashpoint in the ongoing conflict.

Since 2017, government forces have been fighting separatist fighters in the Northwest and Southwest regions who are seeking to create an independent state called Ambazonia. The conflict has killed more than 8,000 people and displaced nearly 500,000 refugees and about 400,000 internally displaced people, according to OCHA figures.

Tensions spiked in June around official examinations, including the First School Leaving Certificate (FSLC) on June 10 and 11, and the General Certificate of Education (GCE) from June 3 to June 20. OCHA recorded eight attacks on the education sector, as non-state armed groups threatened parents and teachers not to participate in the exams.

In addition to the fighting between government forces and separatist groups, OCHA reported ongoing tensions between farmers and herders in parts of the Northwest’s Donga-Mantung department. The disputes are linked to grazing lands and damage caused by livestock. On June 16, a Fulani herder attacked and wounded two women in their field in Dumbo, accusing them of trying to seize his cattle. Similar incidents were reported on June 19 in Misaje and on June 26 in Mamba, where a Fulani herder and a woman were injured, respectively.

Source: Sbbc

MAGGSOSANS the world over, unite physically and in spirit to celebrate the life of a remarkable man, Pa Sampson Atem Akoh-Arrey, a giant whose legacy still resonates through the halls of the then Federal Government Grammar School and today’s Government High School, Mamfe, and the hearts of countless students whose lives he touched. For those of us who had the privilege of knowing him, or even just benefiting from his vision, the loss is profound. But the memories, the impact, the enduring spirit of Pa Akoh-Arrey, these will remain a testament to a life well-lived and a legacy firmly cemented in the foundation of our Alma Mater.

Pa Akoh-Arrey was more than just the pioneer Principal of the then FGGS Mamfe; he was its architect, its guiding light, it’s very soul. He didn’t just build a school; he built a community, a family, a place where young minds were nurtured, challenged, and inspired to reach their full potential. His leadership wasn’t about wielding authority; it was about fostering a love of learning, a spirit of inquiry, and a commitment to excellence. He saw the potential in each student, even when they themselves might not have, and he tirelessly worked to unlock it.

Many of us remember his unwavering dedication, his sharp wit, his patience. These memories, personal and unique, paint a vivid picture of a man who was not only a brilliant educator but also a compassionate leader, a mentor, and a father figure. He instilled in us not just academic knowledge, but also values of integrity, perseverance, and a deep sense of responsibility. These are the gifts that continue to shape our lives, long after we left the hallowed grounds of the then FGGS Mamfe.

The secondary school today stands as a monument to his vision, a testament to his unwavering commitment. It is a living legacy, a vibrant community of alumni that continues to thrive, thanks to the foundation he laid. While we mourn his passing, let us also celebrate the extraordinary life he lived, a life dedicated to education, to service, and to the betterment of others. Pa Sampson Atem Akoh-Arrey, your memory will forever be cherished, your contributions eternally remembered. May your gentle soul find solace at the bosom of the Lord.

Victor A. MENGOT

MAGGSOSA, Class of 70