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Rabat – In partnership with UNESCO, Morocco’s Supreme Council of Education, Training, and Scientific Research (CSEFRS) released this week a report detailing the potential for digital education in Morocco and the challenges the country faces.
Titled “Teaching in Morocco During The Era of COVID,” the report makes the case for more inclusiveness and equity in the education sector in Morocco. According to the report, the global experience with remote digital education shows that if used correctly, digital tools can be used to limit and even eliminate inequalities in the country’s education system.
The report does, however, also acknowledge that without solving some of the problems Morocco faces, a digital education will instead exacerbate those inequalities further.
According to the CSEFRS, 75% of primary school students throughout the country do not have access to multimedia classrooms in their schools, and 65% of schools do not have reliable connectivity to the internet at all.
Middle and high school students reported percentages of 53% and 49% respectively for each of those metrics.
38% of primary schoolers and 32% of middle schoolers also reported that their schools did not have a projector.
Aside from the lack of digital tools in some schools, teachers also expressed several concerns in the report.
Chief among the concerns that teachers expressed was the lack of equipment, saying that schools and authorities did not supply teachers with the adequate resources to resume their duties.
More than 60% of teachers interviewed for the report expressed some degree of dissatisfaction with the state of remote teaching in Morocco.
As for students’ concerns, the report states that the combination of online lessons and the mental health repercussions of the COVID quarantine resulted in a noticeable impact on the level of investment and academic performance.
More than half of the students surveyed in the report registered a weak attendance record during the quarantine, with only 9% achieving a good attendance record. The numbers point to a general lack of motivation among students.
These discrepancies can be observed more prominently in poorer and more rural regions of the country, the report noted. Most families in rural or remote areas often do not possess internet connections and devices that would allow their kids to effectively engage with the classes.
CSEFRS’ report shines a light on challenges and concerns that were exacerbated by the pandemic, but the same worries were long expressed in previous reports – both during and before the pandemic – detailing some of the same struggles and their negative effects on students.
However, even after the pandemic and the return to face-to-face classes, a considerable integration of digital education tools is a move that the Moroccan government has been planning for a long time.
Concerning the future of digital education in Morocco, the report concludes that the pandemic has shown the educational institutions that the country is not yet ready for a major shift.
The report details several suggestions of steps Morocco should take to be fully ready to make the switch. First among these suggestions is the need to train academic staff and provide teachers and students with the necessary technology, to ensure that the digital transformation does not cause bigger inequalities in education.
Inequalities must be especially addressed in rural areas, the report stressed, arguing that this is a difficult hurdle that authorities are not doing enough to clear.
Morocco made the switch to online education in 2020, in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus, but recently returned to the previous system of in person classes for the 2021-22 academic year.
