Enrolment terms

This is the contract. It says exactly what we will deliver, what you will pay and when, what happens if either of us stops, and what the certificate is. Read the payment and refund rules before you pay: they are the parts people need later.

How the contract is formed, and the five-day acknowledgement

1. You send the application form. Before you send it you see a review step with everything you entered and you can go back and correct any of it.
2. You pay the application fee of 10 000 FCFA when you send the application, through Tara (Mobile Money, Wave, card or PayPal). This is the only sum due before admission. The application fee is your enrolment fee, charged once: you do not pay it again for Level 2 or Level 3. It is not refundable, including if we do not admit you or you withdraw your application. Paying it creates no contract for training and no obligation to enrol.
3. We telephone you within two working days, and give you our decision in writing within two working days of the call.
4. We send you these terms, the fee schedule and the programme detail in the language you choose, French or English, as a file you can store, reproduce and print. That version governs your contract.
5. You accept them. The application fee you already paid is your enrolment fee; nothing further is due until the level starts. The contract is concluded at the moment you accept.
6. We acknowledge your order in writing within five days, as Cameroonian electronic commerce law requires, confirming the programme, the mode, the dates, the price of the level and of its certification exam, and the refund rules.

We archive your contract and will give you a copy, or a written document containing all the data of the sale, on request, within ten days of conclusion if you ask within that window, and at any later time too. How long we keep it is in the privacy policy.

What we will deliver

• Eleven teaching weeks for the level you enrolled on, comprising live sessions, a daily set activity tied to a module, eleven weekly assignments graded with written feedback, project work and assessment. What a week contains is published on the admissions page.
• Two to three live sessions a week, recorded within the hour and available to download for the duration of your level.
• A coach, at a ratio of one per twelve learners, who will telephone you if you are inactive for two days.
• Forty-eight hours of grace on every deadline.
• Onsite access to the campus throughout your level if you enrolled onsite (including wifi, lab machines and backup power), or the identical programme fully online. You may switch between the two mid-level by telling your coach.
• Sandbox and tool accounts we provision, with no payment card required and no way for you to run up a bill. On the AI programme, LLM API credits. On the Marketing programme, 30 000 FCFA of real advertising budget.
• Preparation for, and registration at, the compulsory industry certification named for your level, including buying the voucher on your behalf at the vendor’s own price with no markup.
• On completing Level 2 and meeting the stated conditions, a two-month remote placement with a partner company in the United States, arranged by us. See the placement section below.
• On successful completion, a SmartSana certificate of completion and a Career Passport link.

What you pay, and when

• The application fee is the enrolment fee, charged once. The 10 000 FCFA paid with your application is your enrolment fee. You pay it once, when you first enrol, and not again for Level 2 or Level 3. It is not part of the tuition for the level. It is not refundable, including if we do not admit you.
• Payment methods: through Tara, the payment platform we use: MTN Mobile Money, Orange Money, Wave, Visa or Mastercard, or PayPal. No delivery or insurance charge applies: this is a service delivered at the campus and online.
• Late payment. We will contact you before we do anything else. If a payment is more than fourteen days late and we have not agreed a plan with you, we may suspend access to live sessions and the campus until it is resolved. We will not withhold work you have already produced, and we will not refuse to tell you your grades.
• No unilateral increases. The rate you agreed holds for the whole of the level you enrolled on. We cannot raise it mid-level.
• Each level is a separate contract. Enrolling on Level 1 commits you to nothing beyond it.

If you change your mind: refunds within fourteen days

These rules do not limit any right you have under Cameroonian electronic commerce law or the framework law on consumer protection (see Complaints, law and forum). How to ask for a refund, and what we refund in every other situation, are set out in the refund and withdrawal policy, which forms part of these terms.

Attendance, progression and the pause

• Expect to spend about 22 hours a week. We say this before you pay because it is the requirement people underestimate.
• Daily activity completion and weekly submissions are recorded. Two days without activity triggers a phone call from your coach, not a warning letter.
• A halfway checkpoint in week 6: a one-to-one with your coach about whether this is working.
• You may pause once per level, free. Your payments hold and you resume at the next intake of the same level. Beyond one pause we will discuss moving you to a later intake.

Assessment and what the certificate is

Assessment weightings and the pass requirements are published on the admissions page and apply as published on the day your level starts. We will not change them mid-level.

Exam vouchers. We buy the voucher for you at the vendor’s price with no markup, and you pay us the equivalent in FCFA at the day’s rate. The voucher becomes yours. A failed exam is not refundable by us because the vendor does not refund it; a retake is a new voucher at the vendor’s current price. We will tell you plainly when we think an exam is beyond where you are.

Your work, and showing it

Work you produce is yours. We ask your permission before showing any of it publicly (on your Career Passport, at demo day, or as an example to future learners), and you can refuse or withdraw that permission without it affecting your grades. Work you deliver to a SmartSana Labs client at Level 3 is governed by the engagement agreement for that piece of work, which you see and accept before you join it.

The certification is compulsory

Every level requires you to sit the industry certification named for that level. It is set, invigilated and marked by AWS, Microsoft, CompTIA, Meta, Databricks or the Python Institute, never by us, and it is not optional.

• The cost is separate from tuition and is disclosed before you sign. It is published on every programme page, on the fees page and in the key-facts panel on the enrolment form. We charge exactly what the vendor charges, with no markup, and we show you the vendor’s receipt.
• We re-quote before we buy. Vendor prices are set in dollars and change without notice. We confirm the current price in week 9 and buy only once you have agreed it.
• A voucher once bought is not refundable, because the vendor does not refund it. We will not buy one until your coach agrees you are ready, and a retake is a new voucher at the vendor’s current price.
• If a vendor retires or renames an exam, we move you to the successor and tell you the new code and price before you pay.
• Failing the exam does not fail the level, and it does not stop you enrolling on the next one. You keep your projects, your assessment record and your Career Passport.
• If paying for the voucher is a genuine difficulty, tell your coach at the halfway checkpoint. We will move the sitting to a later cohort rather than have you finish without the credential you came for.

The placement after Level 2

A learner who completes Level 2 and meets the conditions below is placed on a two-month remote placement with a partner company in the United States. We arrange it; it is part of the programme and there is no additional charge for it. This is the strongest commitment in this contract, so the conditions are set out in full. Nothing on the website adds to them.

What you get

• A placement of two months, performed remotely from your own country.
• Work on the host organisation’s real projects, with a named supervisor and agreed deliverables.
• Permission, agreed in advance with the host, to show the work in your portfolio.
• A written reference and a supervisor who has agreed to take a reference call.

What it is not

• It is unpaid. It is not employment, it carries no salary or stipend, and it creates no employment relationship with the host or with us.
• It does not involve travel to the United States and it is not a visa route. It is performed remotely.
• It is not a job offer and neither we nor the host undertakes to hire you afterwards.

What you must do to qualify

• Complete Level 2, pass the academy assessment and sit the certification for that level.
• Have no unresolved matter under the code of conduct.
• Be eighteen or over when the placement starts: we do not place a minor with a host organisation abroad (see the safeguarding policy).
• Be able to work approximately 20 hours a week during the placement, with some overlap with the host’s working hours, and have a device and a connection (if you do not, the campus is open to you during its opening hours).
• Accept the host’s own confidentiality terms, which we will send you before you start.

Your personal data goes to the host organisation for this purpose, which is a transfer outside Cameroon. What we send and on what basis is set out in the privacy policy.

Conduct, and when we can exclude someone

The code of conduct forms part of these terms. Exclusion is a last resort, follows the stages set out there, and always carries a right of reply before a decision is taken. If we exclude you, the refund consequences are in the refund policy.

If a cohort is cancelled, or the academy stops

• If we postpone a cohort for any reason, you may move to the next cohort (never more than two months away), transfer to another programme at the same price, or take a full refund of your tuition payments, whichever you prefer.
• If we cancel a level once it has started, you are refunded in full for the hours not delivered, and we will tell you in writing why.
• If we cease to deliver training altogether, we refund every learner for hours not delivered, we release your full assessment record and all work you produced in a usable format, we transfer any exam voucher already bought into your own name, and we will write to any provider willing to take on the cohort.

Your personal data

Covered by the privacy policy, which forms part of these terms and which tells you what we collect, why, for how long, who else sees it and how to make us stop.

Complaints, law and forum

Our complaints procedure sets out named stages and timescales and how to escalate outside the company. Cameroonian law applies and the competent Cameroonian courts have jurisdiction. We impose no arbitration clause on you. You keep every right you have under the framework law on consumer protection and the law on electronic commerce, and nothing in these terms limits them.

Version 2.1 · published 9 October 2026 · report an error on this page. This page is written for Cameroonian law and has not yet been reviewed by a Cameroonian lawyer; items marked in orange are unconfirmed.