The Professionalization Paradox: Rising Academic Standards and Declining Real Quality in Primary Teacher Education in Cameroon and Nigeria (1995–2025)

Abstract

In a context marked by international quality mandates (SDG 4) and cross-border security crises, Cameroon and Nigeria have raised the formal academic requirements of primary teacher education. This article examines the apparent paradox between that elevation, the shift from the BEPC to the Baccalaureate in Cameroon and the generalization of the Nigeria Certificate in Education, and the persistent perception, among trainers and administrators, of a decline in the quality of those who enter and complete the programmes.The study draws on sixteen semi-structured interviews conducted in 2025 with lecturers, student teachers, ENIEG directors and trainers, pedagogic advisers and basic-education officials in the Fombina region, six at the Federal College of Education, Yola (Nigeria) and ten in Mayo Kani Division (Cameroon). Sampling followed availability rather than statistical representativeness. Thematic analysis is consistent with what can be labelled, provisionally, as adverse selection: precarious occupational status and, in Cameroon, the rupture between training and civil-service integration are said to deter stronger academic profiles. Respondents also link a shrinking pool to insecurity. At ENIEG Kaélé, which they themselves locate away from the most violently affected zones, directors reported an intake of sixteen students in a facility designed for hundreds, and a motto of survival ("we make do") that contradicts official standards. The interviews do not isolate insecurity from employment signals or from competition with other tracks.The article argues that professionalization through credentials, without revaluation of the occupation or a credible path into employment, can be counterproductive: it tightens access without securing classroom quality. The evidence is perceptual and locally bounded. It does not measure pupil learning and cannot be read as a national census of teacher competence.