The education sector in Morocco has been awaiting major reforms in line with the government’s implementation of the framework law on the education system, training, and scientific research, which the parliament had approved in August 2019.
Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani chaired on Friday evening a meeting of the National Commission to oversee implementation of the law and Morocco’s education reform at large.
The meeting was held in Rabat and was aimed at discussing the components of the reform’s legislative and regulatory plan.
The commission includes a number of ministers, who were appointed to oversee the implementation of the education reform plan.
According to a presentation by Education Minister Said Amzazi, many legislative and regulatory texts will be issued before late 2020, including three bills related to school education, vocational training, and higher education.
He said other decrees on “school guidance, educational support lessons, and distance education,” will also be issued.
The reforms also target the private sector education system, on which two decrees where issued.
“The first defines the conditions and the rate of the private education institutions’ contribution to providing free of charge services for the children of needy families and for people with disabilities,” Amzazi explained.
“And the second specifies the criteria for reviewing registration fees, education, insurance, and services in private sector institutions.”
In his opening speech, Othmani said the meeting is held in “special circumstances,” marked by the changes in the educational system due to the coronavirus pandemic.
He said the pandemic has “uncovered new challenges, revealed enormous energies and capabilities among actors in this system, and enabled them to respond to the various academic, training, and university entitlements.”
The Premier also stressed that the reforming process of the education and training system will be done differently this year.
“It will focus on the continuity in holding major workshops,” which were first launched by King Mohammed VI.
Morocco’s Supreme Council for Education, Training, and Scientific Research has earlier prepared a 15-year plan for the education sector, which runs from 2015 to 2030. It includes the recruitment and training of 200,000 new teachers and bases the need for reform on the education system’s weaker areas, such as the economic difficulties faced by graduates.
The government has transformed this strategy into a “framework law,” which was approved by the parliament and included a timeline for issuing a number of legal and regulatory texts for educational reform.
In 2020, the operating budget for the Ministry of National Education, Vocational Training, Higher Education and Scientific Research was Dh65.3bn ($6.8bn), up from Dh62bn ($6.5bn) in 2019.
The 2020 figure made up roughly 27 percent of total government spending, an increase from 24 percent in 2018, and the average of 22 percent seen from 2007 to 2012.
The Ministry’s budget is part of the Dh72.4bn ($7.5bn) set aside for the implementation of the new education law.
Additional funds are associated with plans to invest new higher education and professional training establishments.
