Hello my dear Cameroonian steemians. Another beautiful contest has come courtesy to @thegreens. I want to give a special appreciation for this contest because it's subject matter is something very close to my heart; education.

What do you think about the number of subjects and content of subjects students study in Cameroon?

Education is the backbone to any civilized society. In Cameroon, the Anglosaxon system of Education in the Secondary Schools gives rise to two levels: the Ordinary Level (O/L) and the Advanced Level (A/L).

We also have three different types of education; the general, commercial and technical education. I shall lay more emphasis on the general education in this post as it is what I am more versed with.

The O/L consists of the classes form one to form five. While the A/L consists of Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth. When it comes to the number of subjects taught, it depends on the class and the school.

It depends on the school because the school has the authority to add subjects based on what they think the students need. For example, all Catholic mission schools make Religious Studies a compulsory subject till LowerSixth and some require their students to learn basic Latin in the lower classes.

Another example is that schools whose existence is associated with another country's influence usually allow their students to learn that language as well e.g German, Chinese etc.

Class	Number of subjects studied
Form one	13 to 16
Form two	13 to 16
Form three	14 to 17
Form four	10 to 14
Form five	9 to 11
Lower Sixth	3 to 6
Upper Sixth	3 to 5

From the above table, you can see a trend in the number of subjects. Considering only the maximum or minimum numbers, the number of subjects remains the same in the first two classes, increases to its highest level in form 3 and starts to reduce in the next classes. Here is the reason why.

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a. Form one and form two are the foundation classes in the Secondary School setting. It is in these classes that the children are given all the possible subjects that are available to students.

The number might seem to be a lot. This is where content comes in. What is actually done in these classes is more of introductory classes. Merely the basics of each subject is thought. The reason behind this is to open the children's minds to new concepts and theories.

These basics are also taught so that no matter what the child chooses to pursue in the future, the child has the basics in other subjects to increase their knowledge and enable them function well.

For example; if a student wished to be a journalist, they will still need the basics from mathematics such as basic counting and number theory, how to make graphs, etc, as this will help them out when gathering and putting together field findings.

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b. Form 3 is the introductory class to the knowledge evaluated in the GCE Ordinary Level examination. A school is a formal organisation and as such, has its objectives and set goals. One of this is to prepare students for this National Examination.

This examination was put in place to ensure that indeed, students in all schools are acquiring the same knowledge as per what they think they need to know. This is why some subjects like Economics are introduced here, a subject who's prerequisite is Mathematics and Commerce, taught in the previous levels.

We can see how the knowledge is building up. The content here is a bit deeper than in the previous classes. This is also the class where students choose to do general education or commercial education. This is facilitated because the students are familiar with all the subjects and can now gear toward more specific fields of interest.

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c. In form four, those in the general education now separate to their desired areas; either the Arts or the Sciences. Studying becomes more specific. This accounts for the decrease in the number of subjects as you won't find a science student doing Literature or an arts student doing Physics, etc.

Accompanying this decrease in the number of subjects is an increase in the content being taught. Teachers now go deeper when teaching each subject. The moderately high number of subjects is due to certain subjects which at the macro level (the ministry) are deemed necessary for students.

It is also because other subjects such as Logic, Additional Mathematics and Geology are being introduced.

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d. In form five, the primary focus is to prepare students for the GCE O/L. The number of subjects now drop based on the regulations of the GCE i.e you can not sit for less than 9 or more than 11 subjects, where the eleventh must be religious studies.

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e. In lower sixth, you experience a drastic drop in the number of subjects. This is because all the "compulsory" subjects have been dropped for more interest specific ones. Their grades in the examination results act as proof to the organization board that they have learned what needed to be learned.

Subjects like these include Mathematics, English, French, Economics, Geography, and Religious Studies in mission schools. It is also accompanied by a huge increase in depth of the content of the subjects.

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f. This carries on to upper sixth in preparation for the GCE A/L. The sixth subject in lower sixth is accounted for by the fact that in Catholic mission schools, you must study Religious Studies in lower sixth.

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From the above, you can see that the number of subjects studied in secondary schools per class is inversely proportional to the content depth of each subject. It should be noted that the number of subjects to be studied and content to be taught came about after serious deliberations at the micro (school administration) is and macro level (ministry). And these were after serious considerations of the goals of the organisation (school or ministry) and needs of the student to integrate seamlessly into society.

And it has been proven effective as no student can say he or she lacks the basic knowledge in areas that are not of their expertise. We all know a little bit of everything.

Thank you all for reading.
@majerius
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