Back-to-school : Huge Business Opportunity To Capitalize

Accueil / L’enquête de la semaine / Chiffres clé de la semaine / Back-to-school : Huge Business Opportunity To Capitalize

Back-to-school : Huge Business Opportunity To Capitalize

The back-to-school market in Cameroon is evaluated at about FCFA 600 billion.

29 août 2023 12:54

Pupils and students across the national territory will resume school activities on September 4, 2023 for the 2023/2024 academic year. For this reason, preparations are heating up at various levels especially with parents and guidance to acquire diverse didactic materials as well as other needs for pupils and students. The effervescence of the back-to-school fever is already being felt in the markets, shops, and other commercial areas of the city of Yaounde as traders in school items, tailoring shops and bookshops are already displaying their stock ready for brisk business. Going by the statistics of school attendance in Cameroon in 2022, with an estimated 6 million pupils and students on enrolment, the statistics presented by the government in a press conference at the verge of school resumption in 2022 indicated that there are 4.570 pupils in primary and nursery schools and 1,924 students in both public and private school across the country. Economic analyst in assessing the market value of school manuals, uniforms and other expenses borne by parents which averages about FCFA 100,000 per pupil/student, says business around back-to-school activities is estimated at FCFA 600 billion. “Acquiring uniforms, textbooks, exercise books, school bags, shoes and other accessories for my three kids is quite demanding financial wise. I spend in the neighbourhood of FCFA 100,000 to 150,000 per child,” Felix Etape, a Yaounde-based civil servant told Cameroon Business Today. Some parents have acquired loans from commercial banks or thrift schemes (commonly known in local parlance as Njangi) to be able to foot the back-toschool bills. The situation is further compounded for pr...