Under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya, the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training is accelerating reforms to make vocational training more responsive to Cameroon’s economy and more directly connected to employment, entrepreneurship and productive self-employment.
Presenting the major developments recorded during the 2025–2026 training year and prospects for 2026–2027, the Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, Mounouna Foutsou, highlighted a series of reforms and investments that are gradually changing the way skills are developed, financed and certified in Cameroon.
At the centre of this transformation is a clear principle: training must lead somewhere.
As the Minister stated, “there can be no sustainable employment without skills, and no valued skills without a close connection to business, economic activity, and integration opportunities.”
That thinking is already shaping programmes such as the Project to Support the Development of Secondary Education and Skills for Growth and Employment, PADESCE, which has become one of the important instruments through which MINEFOP is linking vocational training more closely to labour-market demand.
PADESCE helping shift training towards jobs and economic demand
One of the major developments highlighted by the Minister is the growing use of financing mechanisms that respond directly to the needs of the economy.
Through PADESCE, funded with support from the World Bank, MINEFOP has accelerated the shift from financing based mainly on available resources towards a system increasingly focused on results and economic demand.
Through its Competitive Skills Development Mechanism, PADESCE has already provided nearly 3,000 training vouchers to young people.
The programme has also supported on-the-job training, staff development for small and medium-sized enterprises and skills strengthening for actors in the social economy and informal sector.
The training areas reflect sectors where Cameroon needs practical and employable skills, including digital technology, heavy machinery operation, welding, construction and public works, energy and agro-industry.
For MINEFOP, this approach is particularly important because it links public investment in training with identifiable economic needs.
Instead of training first and looking for employment afterwards, programmes such as PADESCE are helping the vocational training system start from the skills required by businesses, productive sectors and the wider economy.
This demand-driven approach is also expected to continue beyond individual projects. The Ministry is working towards institutionalising it through reforms intended to provide more sustainable financing for vocational training.
A broader shift in the vocational training system
The 2025–2026 training year has marked what the Minister described as a progressive change in the country’s training model.
Cameroon is moving from a system mainly centred on training provision towards one increasingly driven by the economy’s needs, business demand, certification requirements and actual prospects for professional integration.
This comes as MINEFOP finalises preparations for the national examinations for the Vocational Qualification Diploma, with nearly 10,000 candidates registered for the 2025–2026 training year.
Because the examinations are still to be completed, the Ministry has not presented a final statistical assessment of the training year. Instead, attention has been placed on the structural changes already underway and on how they can be consolidated during 2026–2027.
Private vocational training continues to expand
The number of accredited private vocational training institutions has increased from 2,790 to 3,020, representing growth of approximately 8.2 percent.
The increase is being accompanied by a gradual diversification of training into sectors considered important for economic growth and job creation.
These include agriculture and agro-industry, cotton-textile-garment, digital technologies, construction and public works, renewable energy, industrial maintenance, transport and logistics, as well as green, blue and service-economy jobs.
MINEFOP is also working to rationalise the national training map so that programmes are distributed according to economic zones, local needs, available infrastructure and investment projects.
The aim is to reduce duplication of low-demand programmes and ensure that training responds more closely to the comparative advantages and employment opportunities of each locality.
Major investments in Douala, Edea and Pitoa
The reform is also visible in public vocational training infrastructure.
Construction of the Sectoral Vocational Training Centres in Douala and Edea, supported through the Debt Relief and Development Contract, C2D, has reached reported physical execution rates of approximately 80 percent in Douala and 90 percent in Edea.
The financial contribution stands at around €9 million, equivalent to CFAF 6 billion.
These centres are being designed not simply as additional schools, but as sector-specific platforms where training institutions and businesses can jointly develop course content, organise work-study programmes, receive trainees and participate in skills assessment and centre governance.
In Pitoa, rehabilitation of the Rapid Vocational Training Centre for Industrial Trades has also begun under the Skills Initiative for Africa.
The project represents an overall investment of approximately CFAF 4.5 billion and is expected to strengthen the supply of industrial skills in northern Cameroon.
PEAC expands the skills-for-industrialisation agenda
Alongside PADESCE, the Ministry is also implementing the Project to Support the Promotion of Entrepreneurship and the Improvement of Skills in support of Industrialisation, PEAC.
Mainly financed by the African Development Bank, PEAC has an estimated total cost of CFAF 42.6 billion.
Its objective is to develop the skills required by the economy, improve worker productivity, strengthen business competitiveness and promote entrepreneurship among young people and women.
The programme plans to establish three Trades Training Centres.
In Akonolinga, training will focus on green jobs and construction; in Kousseri, on transport, heavy machinery and renewable energy; and in Kribi, on the blue economy and maritime professions.
PEAC also provides for the Soa Trades Village, support to existing public and private centres and the development or revision of around 20 training reference documents and curricula.
Around 400 trainers are expected to undertake company internships, while approximately 400 professionals will be certified through Validation of Acquired Experience.
The programme also plans to support 1,500 trainees through internships and assist 500 first-time job seekers in accessing employment.
Apprenticeship bringing training closer to the workplace
MINEFOP is also expanding new ways of acquiring skills.
Through the FormPro237 project, the Ministry successfully completed a first pilot phase of apprenticeship and work-study training involving higher education institutions, technical schools and vocational training centres.
The project made it possible to develop and test apprenticeship contracts, apprentice logbooks, work-study schedules, tutoring methods, evaluation instruments and financial models.
The objective is to make companies active participants in the training process and ensure that young people gain practical workplace experience before completing their programmes.
Experience itself can become a route to certification
Another major reform is the Validation of Acquired Experience, VAE.
The mechanism will enable professionals in both the formal and informal sectors to obtain official recognition of skills acquired through work experience.
Nearly 1,000 requests have already been received.
For people who have worked for years without formal qualifications, VAE provides a pathway to certification without requiring them to return to full-time training.
Training for the jobs of today and tomorrow
The Ministry is also modernising what is taught and how it is taught.
The National Centre for Vocational Trainers and Programme Development developed 45 curricula using the Competency-Based Approach.
Nearly 1,300 trainers were strengthened in instructional design, training sequence development, skills assessment and curriculum use, while another 50 trainers are undergoing professional certification.
Training programmes are increasingly opening up to artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cybersecurity, embedded systems programming, digital marketing, AI-assisted graphic design, welding, heavy machinery operation, renewable energy and agro-industrial trades.
Some of these programmes are being implemented through initiatives such as ORFEV-Jeune and the D-CLIC project of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.
JEME brings the different interventions together
The different reforms are now being brought under the “One Youth, One Trade, One Job” programme, JEME.
JEME is not intended to replace programmes such as PADESCE or PEAC. Rather, it serves as a unifying framework through which their achievements can be linked into one complete pathway for beneficiaries.
The Minister’s presentation identifies PADESCE, PEAC, FormPro237, VAE, D-CLIC and ORFEV-Jeune among the initiatives whose achievements are expected to converge under JEME.
The programme follows the young person from career guidance to training and certification, then towards workplace immersion, employment, entrepreneurship or productive self-employment.
Its four functions are to guide young people towards relevant careers, train and certify them in promising trades, organise apprenticeships and work-study opportunities, and support entrepreneurship when salaried employment is not immediately available.
“Our aim is to give greater political and operational visibility to Government efforts in favour of youth employment, while ensuring that each training programme leads to a clear prospect of employment or business creation,” Minister Mounouna Foutsou said.
2026–2027: moving from projects to scale
For the next training year, MINEFOP intends to consolidate the reforms and broaden their impact.
The Ministry plans to certify 500 trainers and develop and approve 50 training curricula in collaboration with trade professionals.
Agro-pastoral programmes will be progressively introduced in 55 Rural Artisan and Home Economics Sections located in production areas.
Three vocational training centres are expected to open: the Trades Training Centre in Ebebda, and the Sectoral Vocational Training Centres in Douala and Edea.
The D-CLIC programme is also expected to provide certified digital-skills training to 2,000 young people.
Formal apprenticeship and structured informal training are expected to benefit at least 1,000 young people.
The Ministry also intends to hold the first expanded VAE sessions and complete and operationalise ongoing infrastructure projects, with attention to equipment, human resources, maintenance, governance and partnerships with businesses.
Importantly, the Minister also confirmed that implementation of PEAC with the African Development Bank and the Programme for Results, P4R, with the World Bank will continue, with emphasis on complementarity of financing, coherence of interventions and national ownership of reforms.
Making demand-driven financing permanent
The experience of projects such as PADESCE has also influenced the Ministry’s longer-term institutional thinking.
MINEFOP is proposing the establishment of a Vocational Training Development Fund.
According to the Minister, partner-supported projects have demonstrated the usefulness of demand-driven financing, and the next step is to institutionalise this approach.
Draft texts for the proposed Fund have been finalised and are ready to be submitted to the competent authorities.
The Fund would support initial training, apprenticeships, worker retraining, educational innovation and priority skills required by businesses.
The Ministry is also proposing Sector Skills Councils, which would give businesses a stronger role in identifying trades, developing curricula, receiving apprentices, providing professional expertise and co-financing training.
A third reform concerns the effective establishment of the National Council for Guidance and Vocational Training, provided for under the 2018 law governing vocational training in Cameroon.
The real test comes after training
For MINEFOP, the most important measure of success will increasingly be what happens to beneficiaries after they complete their training.
The 2025–2026 training year has already seen progress in training diversification, infrastructure development, competency-based education, apprenticeship, work-study programmes, VAE and the opening of training towards digital, industrial and green professions.
The next step is to ensure that programmes such as PADESCE, PEAC, FormPro237, ORFEV-Jeune and the other initiatives do not operate as isolated interventions, but contribute to a coherent national system in which training leads to recognised skills and recognised skills lead to economic opportunity.
As Minister Mounouna Foutsou stated, “our commitment will therefore no longer be just to increase the number of programmes or people trained. It will be to consolidate a true national ecosystem for skills development.”
For MINEFOP, that is the direction of the reform: a vocational training system in which public investment, private-sector demand, certification and employment increasingly work together — giving every young person a clearer route from training to qualification, and from qualification to opportunity.