Taroudant - The Justice and Development Party (PJD) criticized on Monday Morocco’s Ministry of Education’s decision to adopt French as a medium to teach science subjects at high schools across the Kingdom.
Taroudant – The Justice and Development Party (PJD) criticized on Monday Morocco’s Ministry of Education’s decision to adopt French as a medium to teach science subjects at high schools across the Kingdom.
A few days before the PJD group in Parliament, along with the national coalition for the Arabic language in Morocco, had denounced the action taken by the Minister of Education.
“We cannot, under the pretext of openness, adopt a foreign language,” PJD member Rachid El Kabil said.
The coalition considers the decision as a “real threat to the educational and linguistic security, denigration of the values of Moroccans and a project that goes against the Constitution.”
Starting from the current academic year 2015-2016, the Ministry of Education has made compulsory to teach mathematics and physics in French at public and private high schools.
The Ministry of Education explained that the new measure aims to “correct the imbalances within the Moroccan educational system.”
The ministry’s decision came in defiance to reports and officials’ statements urging the adoption of English as the country’s first foreign language, as well as a medium of instruction in schools instead of French.
Last June, Morocco’s think tank, the Rabat Center for Political and Strategic Studies submitted a report to the Supreme Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research, demanding the adoption of English as Morocco’s first foreign language instead of French.
Several politicians and officials, including Morocco’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Lahcen Daoudi, have previously called for the adoption of English in Moroccan schools.