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Rabat – Minister of Education Said Amzazi said that contractual teachers are hampering their students’ education with their strikes and demonstrations, vowing to expel the protesting teachers.
During a press conference on Wednesday, March 27, Amzazi announced that the government will start procedures to fire the protesting teachers hired through regional academies across the country.
Expressing frustration with the protests, the minister warned the teachers that the government will send them warnings of expulsion and will also cut their wages if they do not return to their work.
Amzazi also strongly criticized the Moroccan National Coordination of Teachers (CNPCC) “forced into contractual teaching” for encouraging strikes that have lasted for four weeks so far. He argued that the coordination is only adding fuel to the fire and hindering the government’s efforts to find solutions.
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“Despite the serious efforts we have made there is this coordination which incites employees at regional vocational training academies to stop working for the fourth week now. We are questioning, what is the legal status of this coordination? And does it have the legitimacy to lead a strike?”
Amzazi affirmed that if the teachers resume their work and end their strike, the government will “provide them with all their needs and guarantee all their rights, except for the deduction of their wages,” which the government will still execute.
The decision also includes the 15,000 teacher trainees at regional academies. Like the contractual teachers, the trainees will receive a warning letter, and if they do not end their strike within five days, they will be replaced by others on a waiting list.
According to Amzazi, in the past four years, the government employed 70,000 teachers who were jobless. “They now have an honorable job and important job,” he stated.
Beginning in February, more than 10,000 young teachers who describe themselves as “forcibly contractual educators,” made international headlines with days of marches and protests in Rabat.
The marches, organized by the Moroccan National Coordination of Teachers (CNPCC) “forced into contractual teaching,” rose against the signing of a contract extension for contractual teachers hired in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
The protesting teachers are denouncing the government for not meeting their demands and accuse it of “discriminating between teachers” in Morocco through the contracts. Contractual teachers do not benefit from rights granted by the employment law for public sector employees like permanent teachers.
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Contractual teachers also have a smaller pension, and their salaries come from the educational academies with whom they are contracted for a certain period of time.
According to the contracts, teachers’ salaries can increase depending on the employee’s pay grade. However, the ministry did not abide by some of the conditions in the contracts, teachers say.
The teachers say the government should increase their salary by MAD 100 each year.
The Ministry of Education offered to change the teachers from “contractual teachers” hired under fixed terms to full employees of the regional academies of education, but the teachers did not accept the proposal.
The teachers said that the regional academies do not have the human and financial resources to adopt all of them.
