Publishing grades for GCE results is violation of human rights- Youth leader

Youth leader, Mokate Ashu has opined that the Cameroon General Certificate of Education Board, CGCEB, could further not publish names of candidates for privacy sake “Grades and scores in exams are considered personal data which need to be protected. It’s very traumatizing to have someone’s 2 E grades in religion and philosophy out to the whole public without their consent.”

He cautioned that when everyone sees your results, especially when they are poor, it can push you to commit suicide, “many have committed suicide for being mocked at their grades. Some kids lose complete confidence and experience huge psychological and social damage.”

In previous years, the CGCEB used to publish results plus the number of subjects passed and the grades, but in 2023 only the number of subjects passed was made known.

“This new approach by the GCE board is laudable. This is Child Protection and commendable,” Ashu said.

But he noticed that though grades were not published, names of candidates could still be seen in all the results, “even publishing names of those who passed is a breach of privacy. However, the GCE board has taken a good step and should improve by publishing only general information such as %age passes, %failed, and %ages pass in different grades. Information shared with the public needs not to be personal data.”