Education is a very important subject in every society. It is how nations measure their success. The same could be said about my country Morocco. A few hundred words will not adequately highlight all of the aspects of education in Morocco, however. In the following paragraphs I will touch upon the most important facts and statistics concerning education in my country with the hope of providing a broad understanding of this issue.
In Morocco, the education system passed through two principal phases:
Before the independence phase:
During the years of French colonialism, the education system was recessive; the only modern schools were those owned by French colonizers. In general, the existing schools were those that were traditional katatib koranic schools (mosques that teach Koran and Arabic grammar). Most students during that period were males because there were hardly any girls allowed to attend school, and this situation continued for a few years after independence.
After the independence phase:
Morocco got its independence in 1956. Despite limited resources, the government paid attention to the education system and has implemented reforms in order to increase the availability of education at all levels. Education is therefore allocated a significant portion of the budget.
In the 1960s, education was made free and compulsory in the primary stages for all students between the ages of 7 through 15. As a result, all children had the same equal shot at education. Morocco has utilized an Arabization education policy which attempts to remove the French language in favor of Arabic but despite this policy being effect for over 50 years, the French influence remains. French is still the sole language of instruction at the tertiary level in all scientific subjects and technical fields.
In addition, the government has taken many steps to improve access to education and to reduce regional differences in its provisions. One of the most important of these reforms was the national education and training charter of 1999. The charter declared the 2000 to 2009 decade the ‘decade for education’ and established education and training as a national priority. The reform program faced delays, however, which resulted in an education emergency plan in 2009 to boost the reform process.
In my experience as a Moroccan student, despite all of these reforms, the Moroccan education system has some obstacles to overcome, such as an increase of dropouts and the high rate of illiteracy, which is about 52% in both genders. Additional obstacles are that students’ performances are not always at its best due to the lack of communication between teachers and pupils, especially concerning those students who need extra tutoring. This is an acute problem in rural zones due to the rarity of instructional materials and overcrowded classes. Also, in some rural places students cannot understand formal Arabic because of the plurality of languages in Morocco (darija, tashelhit, tarifit). As a result, students’ performances in higher levels of education produce poor results and this was reflected by the failure of universities to produce candidates with high qualifications.
