The resignation comes a week after an education commission at the parliament adopted a controversial law promoting multilingual education.
Rabat – Chairman of the group of Justice and Development Party (PJD) MPs at the House of Representatives Idriss Al Azami Idrissi submitted his resignation letter to the secretariat of the ruling party on Saturday, July 20.
The resignation letter does not include the reasons behind his resignation. Local news outlets, however, speculate that Al Azami’s move is due to the adoption of the new framework law for education.
The Moroccan parliamentary commission for education adopted the law on July 16.
The controversial law allows for scientific and technical subjects to be taught in foreign languages.
Despite criticism for the law, the parliamentary commission approved the law by a vast majority (25 votes).
Read Also: New Framework Law Promotes Multilingual Education in Morocco
While the Justice and Development Party has not yet confirmed Al Azami’s resignation, Moroccan television channel 2M quoted a resignation letter from al Azami.
The letter reads: “I regret to inform you that on Saturday I addressed a letter to the Secretary-General [Saad Eddine El Othmani] of my decision to resign from my job as the chairman of the PJD in the House of Representatives.”
Al Azami, a supporter of former Head of Government Abdelilah Benkirane, added that he will have the opportunity to disclose the circumstances behind his resignation.
Morocco’s Minister for Education Said Amzazi described the adoption of the framework law 51.17 as “historic.”
Ahead of the adoption of the law, a controversy ensued among political parties and politicians to emphasize the need to preserve official languages in Morocco, in accordance with the constitution: Arabic and Tamazight (berber).
Benkirane, who also served as former secretary-general of PJD, was among the politicians who defended the Arabic language loudly.
“If higher education in a foreign language is necessary one day, there is a better language for it than French,” Benkirane said in March.
In addition to Benkirane, Al Istiqlal Party and The National Coalition for the Arabic Language also opposed the framework law when the government reviewed the draft.
The coalition described the law as a crime and a violation of the Moroccan constitution, which establishes Arabic and Tamazight as Morocco’s official languages.
“There is no evidence that teaching science in Arabic has caused the failure of the education system,” he said.
