Division I was one of the 3 Divisions created when The Advanced School of Translators and Interpreters was established in 1985, until when by decree N° 92/074 of 13 April 1992 the university center was transformed into a full fledged University.

The academic program in Division I of ASTI was designed for the training and further training of translators lasted for two years or six (6) terms after which successful candidates were awarded the Post Graduate Diploma in Translation and were automatically absorbed into the public service (before the university center was transformed into the University of Buea.)

A total of 12 students were admitted in 1985, and in 1987 were awarded the Post Graduate Diploma in Translation. In total 35 courses were offered in Division I of ASTI leading to the award of the Post Graduate Diploma in Translation from 1986 to 1993. Conversely, out of the 35 courses on the program, 22 (that is 63%) of them were taught in the first year. Of the 22 courses taught in the first year, 11 (that is 50%), were translation courses, 5 (that is 23.8%) were general courses and 6 (that is 26.2%) were languages courses.
The major language courses offered were: Précis writing and abstraction, Bilingualism, introduction to creative writing, comparative stylistics, creative writing, revision, editing and proofreading, translation and computer application, documentation and terminology, and advanced expository writing and Linguistics for Translators.

During this period, the official translation curriculum followed the average system from 1985-1993. In 1993 by presidential decree the university center in Buea was transformed into a full fledged university. This period saw the adoption of the credit system in 1993-2006. There was a sharp drop in the number of courses offered in both translation, general, and language courses.

From 2006-present day, higher educational reforms gave birth to the Bachelor, Master, and PhD (BMP) system which sought to focus more attention on competency-based approaches to learning.  The justification for this new orientation was made patent during a two days ‘Competency-Based Seminar’ which held on the 8th and 9th July 2010 at the University of Buea. In this vein, new translation tasks should ideally be involved in satisfying a number of market-imposed requirements extrinsic to translation per se, among which, language proficiency skills and proficient use of state-of-the-art hardware, as well as software rate as strategic in terms of professional survival.

Division I has currently awarded over 900 students with Post Graduate Degrees and MA degrees in Translation since it went operational in 1985.