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Rabat- Morocco’s Coordination of Contractual Teachers has announced its plan to hold a new series of strikes across the country.
Describing themselves as “forcibly contractual educators,” the group announced a program of protests in October and November. The protests will take place across 5 days in October and 4 days in November, the coordination specified in a press release.
The statement added that the coordination “will start its first national strike on October 12 and will continue until the 16th of the same month.”
As for November, “ protests will start on November 10 for three days, including a national sit-in in Casablanca on the 16th of the same month.” According to the statement, the main goal of the protests is to meet the educators’ “unanswered demands.”
The teachers’ decision to organize the strikes comes after the National Council the government organized in September 2020 failed to meet contractual teachers’ demands for better working conditions.
“Under the state of emergency proclaimed to counter the COVID-19 epidemic, public authorities have banned gatherings and protests,” highlighted the statement.
The coordination also criticized the government’s security approach against contractual teachers’ protests and called on all teachers to stand in solidarity with their colleagues, to denounce “inequality” between themselves and their colleagues in the public sector.
Contractual teachers have been carrying out strikes since 2019 against “bad employment conditions,” calling on the government to integrate them into the public sector.
Morocco began employing teachers under renewable contracts in 2016. Since then, more than 50,000 teachers have been hired. Under the terms of these contracts, educators have lower pensions, less job security.
In 2019, the government decided to punish contractual teachers who took part in strikes by cutting their salaries. But the demonstrations have not stopped, and the coordination’s latest statement suggests the group is determined to force the government’s hand .
