Secondary education in Sub-Saharan Africa faces mounting tensions between enrolment demand, fiscal constraints, and supply-side capacity. In Cameroon, despite the complexity of the Ministry of Secondary Education (MINESEC) system, longitudinal evidence on the interplay between these factors remains scarce. Employing a longitudinal documentary research design, this study analyses fourteen MINESEC Statistical Yearbooks (2010/2011–2023/2024) to evaluate demand, financing, and equity. Grounded in Systems Theory and the Educational Production Function, the analysis reveals that while total enrolment expanded by 67% (CAGR 3.7%), classroom (CAGR 2.6%) and teacher (CAGR 3.1%) growth lagged systematically. Consequently, real per-student expenditure declined by 17%, identifying financing as the binding constraint on system quality. Although, national gender parity improved (GPI 0.79 to 0.91), regional disparities particularly in the Far North, North, and Adamawa regions widened over the study period. Also, the Anglophone Crisis caused significant, partially unrecovered enrolment disruptions from 2017. These findings characterise a system achieving quantitative access expansion on a declining real resource base. The systemic input-output imbalance and entrenched regional inequities constitute critical impediments to Sustainable Development Goal 4 implementation in Cameroon. The study recommends legislating enrolment-indexed per-student financing floors, implementing an emergency qualified teacher deployment programme, launching targeted gender equity interventions in structurally disadvantaged regions, and institutionalising MINESEC Yearbooks as active policy intelligence tools. This study provides a foundational longitudinal baseline for evidence-based policymaking in data-constrained educational contexts.
Secondary education; educational financing; educational supply; regional disparities; SDG 4.
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