Financing Equity: Using Money Transfer Levies to Fund Teacher Retention Allowances in Cameroon's Priority Education Zones

Engozo'o Yvan Rony
The University of Yaounde I,
Faculty of Education, Curriculum and Evaluation Department
Email: engozooyvan@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Sub-Saharan African education systems face severe funding constraints driven by public debt, inflation, rapidly expanding demographic pressures and insecurity. In Cameroon, this crisis has contributed to an unprecedented brain drain of qualified educators from Priority Education Zones (ZEPs). Primary and secondary school teachers are increasingly relocating to major urban centres or migrating abroad due to unsustainable baseline wages. Adopting a qualitative method design that includes, tax data analysis, policy reviews, and interviews with officials from the Ministries in charge of Finance, Economy, Basic and Secondary Education, Posts and Telecommunications, Public Service and Administrative Reform, parliamentarians, Regional and Local Authorities, and Technical and Financial Partners, this study explores an innovative domestic resource mobilization mechanism focused on spatial equity. It investigates how dedicated fiscal levies on Cameroon’s expanding digital financial sector specifically mobile money operators can sustainably finance a weighted “School Vulnerability Index,” used to provide targeted monthly salary top-up allowances for teachers in ZEPs. Preliminary models suggest that a micro-levy of 6 CFA francs on digital money transfers could generate substantial ring-fenced revenue capable of supplementing teacher salaries without increasing national debt pressures. This research bridges the gap between private sector windfall gains and urgent public sector workforce needs. It also produces a practical policy brief and a roadmap to amend the national finance law. By offering a sustainable and replicable blueprint for domestic education financing, this model demonstrates how Sub-Saharan African countries can leverage the growth of financial technology to protect educational quality and stabilize their teaching workforce in vulnerable regions.

Keywords: spatial equity, teacher retention, money transfer operators, Priority Education Zones, School Vulnerability Index, top-up allowance.

Article Type: Open Access

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