International initiatives,
such as the Bologna Process, to create a European area of higher
education in order to promote mobility and employability as well as to enhance
the development of the continent has influenced higher education reforms in
Cameroon. Cameroon has adopted Bologna Process ideas together with all five
countries of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), made up of
Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial
Guinea, and Gabon. In the CEMAC region, the CEMAC Head of States adopted the
Bologna Process as the Licence-Master-Doctorat (LMD) system in 2005, to create a CEMAC “Space for Higher Education, Research and Professional Training.”
Through the model of policy borrowing, this chapter examines the transnational
flow of Bologna Process ideas with a focus on the challenges of the
implementation of these Bologna-inspired reforms in Cameroon. Data comprised
text documents, interviews, and a review of literature, analyzed using thematic
analysis and temporal comparison.

Our findings highlight
general challenges of the LMD system as a whole as well as specific challenges
related to individual lines of action involving the LMD system. General
challenges of the LMD system include issues related to conceptualization,
perception, implementation, interpretation, and insufficient resources.
Specific challenges related to the degree structure, credit system, mobility,
and professionalization of school studies are also discussed. Challenges of the
LMD system, as universities in Cameroon have faced, are further compounded by
the fact that it is a borrowed model whose the interpretation in Cameroon is
further constrained due to the dual Francophone and Anglo-Saxon system of
education there. In addition, goals of the LMD system are broad and complex,
which has further posed challenges to implementation.