The government spokesman Mustapha El Khalfi blames it on the current education system for producing a “jobless generation.”
Rabat – The spokesman to the Moroccan government, Mustapha El Khalfi, said in a meeting held in Fez on Sunday, May 5, 2019, that he blames the current educational programs for producing what he called a “jobless generation.”
El Khalfi stated, “The education system is facing enormous challenges and turmoil, for which the government is severely criticized.”
Speaking of some of the challenges, El Khalfi stated that the number of children who drop out of school stands at 270,000 every year, compelling the government to implement the program called Tayssir (Arabic for “facilitation”) to target families in the rural areas to help parents financially to enroll their children in primary school.
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Tayssir will also include secondary education, according to El Khalfi, especially in remote communities, which suffer at a rate of 12% for dropouts.
El Khalfi also noted that thanks to the government’s recruitment scheme within academies, which amounted to 70,000 new teachers, helped resolve the problem of overcrowding, where classrooms contained up to 60 students. Classrooms are now reduced to 30 in 95 percent.
To meet the shortage, he added, there is a need for 200,000 teachers.
Responding to the criticisms raised accusing the government of putting an end to free education, El Khalfi said that these people are promoting “poisonous misinformation,” adding that the budget dedicated to education has jumped from MAD 36 billion in 2006 to MAD 68 billion this year, which will possibly double next year.
El Khalfi stressed that Saad Eddine El Othmani’s government places a high priority on education and considers free education a “red line” not to cross.
The government has responded with practical measures in regard to mandatory education, targeting children as young as four instead of six, and will possibly lower it down to three years old.
While El Khalfi criticized the current educational programs, he applauded vocational training programs, which managed to provide jobs for more than 116,000 youths in the automobile industry over the last four years. Vocational training sets the record in terms of demand, achieving 50,000 students.
