Higher education in Cameroon

From a single university to eleven state universities

Until the early 1990s the country had a single university, in Yaoundé, flanked by university centres. A decree of 13 April 1992 turned the Buea and Ngaoundéré centres into universities, then Decree No. 93/026 of 19 January 1993 created the state universities that came out of the reform: Yaoundé I, Yaoundé II (at Soa), Douala, Dschang, Buea and Ngaoundéré. The reasons given at the time were unmanageable student numbers in Yaoundé, a lopsided geographical spread and low staff-to-student ratios.

Maroua was added by a decree of 9 August 2008 and Bamenda by a decree of 14 December 2010 (it opened in 2011). Announced by President Paul Biya on 31 December 2021, the universities of Bertoua, Ebolowa and Garoua were created by Decree No. 2022/003 of 5 January 2022; their first rectors were appointed in June 2022 and installed over the summer (21 July in Garoua, 4 August in Ebolowa). The University of Ebolowa opened its first buildings, on the Metyipkwalé campus, in August 2026.

The LMD system and the legal framework

Cameroon uses the bachelor's-master's-doctorate (LMD) system as part of the CEMAC higher education area, launched by the Libreville declaration of 11 February 2005 and spelt out in two CEMAC directives of 11 March 2006. According to research published by CODESRIA, the switch began in some state universities in October 2007, for the 2007-2008 year, with other institutions following gradually. The English-speaking subsystem uses the terms Bachelor's, Master's and PhD.

Law No. 2023/007 of 25 July 2023 on the orientation of higher education replaced the law of 16 April 2001. Cameroon Tribune sums up its innovations in four points: digital technology, university-business partnership, student-entrepreneur status and funding. Its Article 20 gives the state a monopoly on awarding degrees. For the 2024-2025 year MINESUP harmonised the bachelor's curricula of the traditional faculties across all state universities, which it says cover 70% of students.

How many students?

No recent MINESUP statistical yearbook is available online. Forbes Afrique, citing MINESUP and the National Institute of Statistics, gives 350,000 students in 2019 and 413,000 in 2022, 71% of them in public institutions, leaving roughly 29% in the private sector. According to World Bank data, the gross tertiary enrolment ratio stood at 16.66% in 2024. The country also hosts foreign students: Chad's higher education minister spoke in November 2023 of some 70,000 Chadians enrolled at Cameroonian universities.

How to get into university

• Entry qualification: the Baccalauréat or the GCE Advanced Level, the two main routes into higher education. For several national examinations the A Level must be passed in at least two subjects (excluding Religious Knowledge) at a single sitting.
• Traditional faculties (law, arts, sciences, economics): direct enrolment with the university, with no entrance exam.
• Grandes écoles, medical faculties, university institutes of technology and teacher-training colleges: admission by competitive exam, with a timetable set each year by a MINESUP decision (the one of 17 February 2026 for 2026-2027).
• Online platforms: the national medical entrance exam uses concoursdauq.com, the BTS and HND exams use examensdauq.com. We found no single national pre-registration platform for bachelor's courses: each university runs its own.
• Foreign qualifications must be recognised by the National Commission for the Evaluation of Training Received Abroad (CNE), whose 120th and 121st sessions were held in September 2026.

Grants and support

The main national award is the academic excellence bonus, 50,000 CFA francs paid to the best students. For 2021-2022, Cameroon Tribune counted 69,034 recipients, 55,342 of them at the eleven state universities and 13,692 BTS and HND graduates of private institutes, for about 3.4 billion CFA francs; payments began on 1 November 2023. Payment often comes more than a year after the year being rewarded: Yaoundé II's 2023-2024 bonuses were paid from 4 November 2025.

MINESUP also relays cooperation scholarships. For 2026-2027: 205 scholarships offered by Algeria (applications until 28 August 2026, under-22s for undergraduate study) and 150 partial scholarships from Indian universities through IAESTE. Tuition fees and student living costs are covered on the page on the cost of higher education.

The challenges

• Numbers: the growth in student numbers that triggered the 1993 reform continues (413,000 in 2022 according to the INS).
• Employment: Forbes Afrique, citing official data, says 41.7% of graduates from technical courses find a job; the mismatch between courses and the labour market is a recurring theme in the press.
• Visibility: none of the eleven state universities appears in the U.S. News 2026-2027 ranking, which covers more than 2,250 institutions.
• Oversight of the private sector: in 2026 the ministry issued a string of warnings about unauthorised courses (see the page on private universities).

Frequently asked questions