Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation Abdellatif Miraoui aims to diversify training opportunities in the southern provinces. The minister announced the news in a November 18 statement.
Agadir’s Ibn Zohr University currently has 21 higher education institutions spread over the southern regions, Miraoui stressed during the inaugural session of the first MD Sahara Forum in Dakhla.
The MD Sahara forum was launched yesterday under the theme “The southern provinces: great diplomatic openings and new paths of development.”
The annual event brings together speakers, officials, decision-makers, analysts, and experts to discuss themes related to the development of the southern provinces and their role as an African hub.
The overall student enrolment of the Ibn Zohr University saw a considerable increase of 7.08%, with 134,699 enrolments this year against 125,795 for the previous academic year, he noted.
He highlighted that the university offers a variety of training courses in different disciplinary fields for equal opportunities, recalling that eight new institutions will be set up by 2023-2024.
“Strengthening offers in education across the southern regions cannot be done without the support of private partners,” he added, noting that the Private University of Agadir has two campuses in the city of Laayoune.
Due to the geostrategic position of the southern region and its constant development, Miraoui argued that the region can, “without a doubt, play the role of regional and continental scientific hub,” amid efforts to ensure multidimensional, inclusive and sustainable development of the region.
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As for scientific research and innovation, Ibn Zohr University, endowed with the “Innovation Center,” represents a real lever for the emergence of an environment conducive to research and development, he said.
Located within the Ibn Zohr University, the Innovation Center aims to promote entrepreneurship and the creation of innovative startups through an incubation process. The university is tasked with producing scientific research that benefits the Souss-Massa region’s economic sectors and industrial ecosystems.
“Our strategy is to make the Moroccan University adopt a deliberate position of internationalization, through an integrated institutional approach where the international missions of teaching, research and service to society are reinforced by four transversal internationalization functions,” he added.
Minister Miraoui described the four functions as “ international institutional cooperation, the winner-international profile, international recruitment, and mobility.”
The government official noted that his department has managed to conclude more than 290 scholarship programs in 70 academic destinations. The roadmap of the ministry of education is committed to strengthening the mobility of students, professors, and administrative executives.
Miraoui noted that the ministry also aims to create a degree of mobility to expand the areas of cooperation related to higher education and scientific research and innovation.
