TITLE:
Retaining Science Students in the Second Cycle of the Special Bilingual Education Program in Cameroon: A Case for the Teaching of French for Specific Purposes/Français Sur Objectifs Spécifiques
AUTHORS:
Bernard Ndzi Ngala
KEYWORDS:
French for Specific Purposes, Bilingual Education, Learner Dropout
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.12 No.11,
November
4,
2025
ABSTRACT: This paper examines the Special Bilingual Education Program (henceforth, SBEP) in Cameroon which aims to promote English-French bilingualism among students. It highlights the shortcomings of the program, particularly the literary bias in the curriculum, which leads to the dropout of science-inclined students in the second cycle. The paper proposes replacing the general French-oriented Français Intensif with French for Specific Purposes (henceforth, FFSP) to retain science students in the program. The paper argues that the teaching and learning of FFSP would better address specific needs of each series at the second cycle of the SBEP and make the program more appealing to science students. Drawing on Spolsky, Green, and Read’s model for the description, analysis and evaluation of bilingual education (1976), a purposive sample of 45 respondents, including 24 SBEP learners, 18 SBEP teachers and 3 examiners of the General Certificate of Education, GCE Advanced Level Special Bilingual Education French was selected. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The documentary research technique enabled the collection of data from GCE Advanced Level Special Bilingual Education French yearly subject reports. The analysis of data collected revealed that after the GCE Ordinary Level Special Bilingual Education French, many science-inclined students abandon the SBEP in the second cycle owing to its literary content orientation. Research findings also revealed that SBEP stakeholders were unanimous on the use of FFSP instruction as a tool to retain science-inclined in the SBEP. On that score, this paper proposes a revision of the GCE Advanced level SBEP curriculum in view of a practical teaching and learning of French for sciences. The proposed curriculum design aligns with the current five GCE Advanced Level scientific fields combinations: S1, S2, S3, S4 and S5.