Morocco’s Ministry of Education Cancels Unified Continuous Assessment

Fez – Morocco’s Ministry of National Education, Preschool Learning and Sports has annulled two ministerial notes relating to the continuous assessment of school courses. The ministry issued the ministerial circulars as a reform for the 2021-2022 period in the three educational cycles — primary school, middle school, and high school.

The circulars have to do with the reforms that the ministry published in September. The first circular concerns the reference framework for this operation, while the second concerns the timetable for unified continuous assessment and their percentage, the ministry said in a statement published earlier today.

The ministerial note introduced a unified test each semester for each education level, with the exception of the second semester of the final year of each educational cycle.

The proposed approach featured a change, allocating 50 percent for both unified and in-class assessments, in the calculation of continuous assessment scores and the annual grade point average.

For the last year of each cycle, the proposed assessment was designed as follows:

For primary school, the unified and in-class assessments are counted as 75%, while the regional unified exam is 25%. For middle school, the unified and in-class assessments are counted as 50%, while the regional unified exam is 50%.

As for high school, the same old system will prevail — with 25% for the first baccalaureate regional unified exam, 25% for the second baccalaureate continuous assessment, and 50% for the national unified exam.

In designing efforts to support and rectify learning challenges and deficiencies detected in pupils at each school level, the new assessment system took into consideration the scores of the unified evaluations, noted the ministry’s statement.

The ministry turned down the two circulars, preferring to keep the assessment provisions that were in place prior to the two circulars.

The news comes on the heels of newly unveiled reforms the ministry says will help improve the quality of education in Morocco.

As part of his professed determination to upgrade Morocco’s education system, the minister of education, Minister Chakib Benmoussa announced on November 19 a new reform regarding the recruitment test for teachers.

A number of provisions in the newly announced reform — especially the decision to set the age limit for education job seekers at 30 – sparked a nationwide backlash against the education ministry.

In response, Minister Benmoussa stood by his reform, describing it as part of a broader series of painful but necessary steps needed to bring up the quality of Morocco’s education system.

While critics have described the new regulations, particularly the age limit, as discriminatory, the minister has maintained that the reforms aim to “enhance the teaching staff’s competence,” strengthen the school system” and “allow students to learn the necessary skills to later contribute to the country’s development.”