Abstract:
The Republic of Cameroon has three ministries of education - the Ministries of Basic, Secondary, and Higher Education. The encouragement of education at each of these levels is a national priority as reflected in existing legislation and annual budgetary allocations relative to other ministries. For example, basic and secondary education ranked first and third, relative to other ministries, in terms of budgetary allocation for the 2006 fiscal year. Institutional management at each level of schooling has been entrusted to appointed personnel in both the public and the private sectors. They occupy different positions with varied job demands or role expectations. Some, like deans and directors, are expected to sign commitment and payment orders, prepare and manage budgets, do performance appraisals for academic and support staff, among others. The responsibilities of a principal officer, regardless of position within the hierarchy, cannot be performed at acceptable, let alone, superior level, without basic training. A major part of the job of a principal officer is to create and nurture optimal condition for effective and efficient performance of individuals and sub-units. Regardless of how skilled collaborators may be, regardless of available state of the art technology, to guarantee superior performance requires successful combination of resources into a well-functioning system, the ultimate test of administrative excellence. A consistent theme that runs throughout this paper is the argument that principal officers lack the competence and have not been supported to meet this challenge.

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Titanji, Peter Fon (2008). Garbage in garbage out: the need to strengthen institutional management capacity of the higher education system in Cameroon. African Journal of Education Management. Vol.11(1) pp.5-18.