The Ministry of Secondary Education (MINESEC) has launched a verification operation affecting 3,442 secondary school teachers. Nalova Lyonga, the minister in charge of this department, published on February 23, 2026, a list of teachers summoned to her ministry. They have 14 days to present themselves at "door 507 bis" and provide supporting documents for their current administrative positions. Otherwise, they will be removed from the state payroll.
This approach follows a data collection by the Ministry of Finance at Cameroon's airports. The analysis of travel information revealed that these state agents had traveled abroad. The goal is to verify whether they have returned to Cameroon and are still in their positions.
This operation is part of a context of increasing emigration, particularly to Canada. Many Cameroonian teachers are leaving their positions to seek better opportunities abroad, while continuing to receive their salaries in Cameroon. This situation represents a shortfall for the state and weakens the public education service.
The removal of emigrated teachers from the payroll is a continuation of the Physical Count of State Personnel (Coppe). Launched in 2018, this operation aims to eliminate fictitious public servants from the payroll. According to the Ministry of Finance, Coppe has made it possible to remove 10,000 fictitious agents, generating annual budgetary savings of approximately 30 billion FCFA since 2019. On November 27, 2025, the Minister of Public Service, Joseph Lé, announced that 6,000 civil servants had been removed from the state workforce following disciplinary proceedings.
In July 2025, the Cameroonian government announced its intention to finalize the COPPE operation in 2026, with the definitive removal from the payroll of all absent, suspended or resigned public servants. Nearly 4,500 agents had already been removed, allowing 14.5 billion FCFA in unduly received salaries to be recovered. In December 2025, Joseph Le revealed that more than 8,000 disciplinary cases had been processed as part of COPPE.
Nalova Lyonga, Minister of Secondary Education since 2018, has undertaken several reforms to improve the education sector in Cameroon. In January 2024, she called for promoting the use of locally produced textbooks in vocational education programs. In August 2024, she was named “Best Minister” of Cameroon by the Cameroon English Newspaper Publishers Association (CENPA).
The verification launched by MINESEC aims to secure and digitize personnel files, improve data reliability, eliminate ghost employees and better control absenteeism. School principals were instructed to submit a signed staff register, in paper form and in Excel format. This information will be compared to administrative data to verify the presence of staff in each establishment. The emigration of teachers, like that of healthcare professionals, is putting a strain on the Cameroonian education system.
In December 2025, the regional education official for western Cameroon reported that more than 600 teachers were missing from his registers. In January, the ministry published a list of more than 1,000 teachers who had not reported for duty. Authorities have warned that the scale of this exodus is putting additional pressure on an already strained system.
