By Dalal Fanchaouy
By Dalal Fanchaouy
Morocco World News
Mohammedia, Morocco, October 26, 2012
After obtaining their bachelor degrees, the students of Hassan II University at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Social Sciences, Mohammedia, are facing the threat of dropouts, as they are no longer allowed to study masters at that faculty, following a decision that was taken by the administrative staff to close masters the program for the academic year 2012/2013.
In august, the students were asked to enroll online for the masters courses they had chosen, as part of pre-registration that was supposed to be completed by the end of September. But when September came, the students were told that there would not be masters classes for the academic year.
Stunned by this news, students decided to protest claiming that education is a basic right guaranteed by the Moroccan constitution.
After a short meeting with the vice dean, the students were told that the university is facing a serious financial problem, and that is the reason why there will be no masters classes for the year.
According to some sources, the budget seems not to be the unique problem at the faculty of Mohamemdia. The faculty is suffering from several problems: the discordance between the Dean and the teachers and very bad infrastructure to name a few.
Last Friday, the university board met in order to discuss this issue and find solutions to it. Meanwhile time goes by and hundreds of students are still uncertain about their future. “We were hoping to hear good news by the end of this meeting, but no decisions were made, we really don’t know what to do now,” says Hamza, one of the faculty’s students.
The real problem facing the students today is dropout, as many didn’t apply to universities across Morocco; and those who applied to other universities said that “it’s so hard to secure a place there, because these universities are already overcrowded.”
Today, students learned that one of the Arabic department teachers has opened a masters class despite the current crisis. The question now is whether other teachers would follow the same path and open other masters courses? Or is this just an exception that won’t be followed by any initiative.
