Rabat – Three Moroccan universities were allegedly involved in diploma trafficking and corruption in 2016, according to a draft report by the Court of Auditors.
The three universities involved are the Mohammed V university in Rabat, Abdelmalek Essaâdi in Tangier-Tétouan and Hassan I in Settat.
Faced with a race against time to prepare their responses to the accusations before the court of auditors, the presidents of the three universities have all opted to refrain from taking summer vacations.
The three officials and their close associates are obliged to reply to the observations and remarks, made by the judges of the Court of Auditors in the 2016 draft report, within the prescribed time-limits.
In its weekend edition, Akhbar Al Youm explained that the three universities were delivering university degrees in return for various sums of money as evidenced by the registration of a number of students in their faculties who did not have baccalaureate degrees. It added that “these are very serious charges.”
Corruption in the university system does not end with the universities’ presidents. A number of professors were also engaged in fraud, offering their services to students in exchange for money, added the daily.
“This is damaging to the image of the Moroccan University which is already suffering from several dysfunctions,” said the newspaper.
The corruption within the education system has a momentous impact on the performance and quality of the education provided to students, leading graduates to be unable to enter the labor market effectively.
Instances of administrative failure within the education system are becoming recurrent.
Recently, the Ministry of Education suspended seven national education officials from performing their tasks and froze their pay, over allegations they had embezzled funds from the failed 2009-2012 education emergency plan.
