An Experiment in the Ruralization of Education: IPAR and the Cameroonian Reform. Experiments and Innovations in Education No. 8.

The problem of primary education has existed for some time in both the western and eastern regions of the United Republic of Cameroon in Africa. It vas generally accepted that the main reason for the poor performance of the education system was the insufficient training of the vast majority of primary school teachers. From the beginning, ENIR (Rurally Oriented Primary Teacher Training Institute) and later IPAR (Institute of, Rurally Oriented Applied Education), the new and expanded version of ENIR, were designed as essential means of solving the problem. Their endeavour was to create a ruralized school directed toward meeting the economic and social needs of Cameroon. With an average rate of primary school enrollment of over 60%, the country was reaching a critical point beyond which squandering of resources and failure to meet real needs would become hard to tolerate. If the system’ were to become too expensive to operate and too unrelated to the needs of society, the development envisaged under the third five-year plan, combined with the considerable demand for training which it created, would cause a dangerous situation in which the deficit would increase.at.the same rate as school attendance and very likely even faster. This paper examines the reasons which led to the emphasis on the ruralization of primary education, and hence, the training of teachers able to carry it out; identifies the agents, stages, and mechanisms of innovation; and gives a brief account of the operation and performance of the Cameroonian education system. (NQ) Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items of marginal reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not responsible for the quality of the oliginal document. Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original. SCOPE OF INTEREST NOTICE The FIIIC Facility has assigned docurn11, ea. In sxocesising to Iii oto ludgethent thus dncument is Also of Interest to the clearinghouses noted to the right. index ing should reflect their special points Of view. UNESCO by Edward Wegman EXPERIMENTS AND INNOVATIONS IN EDUCATION This seies is published in English, in French and in Spanish Titles in this series: I. The TEVEC case 2. The school readiness project Innovation in ieading in Britain 4. Understandiny change in education : an introduction 5. Changes in secondary education and their implications for continuing education in Canada 6. A community school in Yugoslavia 7. The basic secondary school in the countryside: an educational innovation in Cuba 8, An experiment in the ruralization of education: IPAR and the Cameroonian reform The designations employed and the presentation of tilc material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever 00 the part of the Unesco Secretariat concerning the legal status of any country or territory, Or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitations of the frontiers of any country Or territory. Experiments and innovations in education No. 8 An experiment in the ruralization of education: IPAR and the Cameroonian reform