The Implementation of the Cameroon’s French-English Official Bilingualism Policy: The Case of the Special Bilingual Education Programme in Secondary Level Education Institutions

In 1961, Cameroon adopted the policy of French-English bilingualism and pledged to promote individual bilingualism in the country via education. Over the years, many programmes were experimented and they all failed to yield a high number of bilinguals. This article examines the latest programme put in place by the government in its effort to implement its French-English official bilingualism policy at the secondary education level. This programme, known as the “Special Bilingual Education Programme” (SBEP in short) started up with a few pilot schools in the year 2010 and was to be gradually extended to other schools in the country. The tools used to collect data for the survey include two questionnaires for pupils, one interview for teachers and another for school officials. The analysis of the data thus collected revealed that the SBEP programme being implemented in the country can definitely not produce even a small number of bilingual pupils by the time these pupils leave secondary school. The study proposes a new programme which, when implemented, will turn out a high number of competent French-English bilinguals in a relatively short period of time.