Rabat – Students’ parents are reeling in uncertainty due to the ongoing crisis between the government – namely the Education Ministry – and contract teachers, who launched the 2023-24 academic year with a large-scale strike.
No less than 90,000 teachers are engaged in the ongoing strikes, representing 30% of the total workforce in the education sector, according to Minister of Education Chakib Benmoussa.
Benmoussa made this revelation last month during a government council press brief, where journalists asked several questions about contractual teachers’ ongoing strikes.
The strikes are mainly to express rejection of the “unified status” of civil servants, an approved bill that pledged reforms to tackle the contractual teachers dossier.
The law covered different provisions, including obligation of basic training and continuing training, unification, and incentive, among others.
While the government sees the adopted bill as a solution to the crisis, contract teachers and their unions believe that the text ignored their demands.
The National Teaching Union expressed its rejection of the bill, describing it as a “unilateral approach.” The union, which is affiliated with the Democratic Labor Confederation (CDT), said that the new status was supposed to address the demands of various teaching staff. Instead, the union has lamented, it “consolidates the human resource crisis in the education and training system.”
Demands over return
The protesting teachers are now calling for a response to their demands in a climate of uncertainty, the first victims of which are the students, who are missing dozens of classes due to the strikes.
Topping the contractual teachers’ demands is the need for the government to issue an official apology for “all arbitrary actions and violations faced by the teachers during the demonstrations.”
They are also demanding an increase in their monthly salaries, stressing that this raise should bring their salaries to MAD 5,000. Meanwhile, the unions are calling on the government to speed up the official integration of contract workers into the civil service.
In addition, the contract teachers are also demanding that the government convert all “sectoral teachers” into non-examining teachers, and provide them with training compensation, grading compensation, and examination compensation.
Some of the teachers disclosed their bank balances, revealing the impact of salary cuts and other financial obligations – noting that most of them are left with less than MAD 2,000.
One protesting teacher, who preferred to speak on the condition of anonymity, reiterated the contract teachers’ and unions’ rejection of the new unified law, describing it as “unjust.”
“The previous protests were carried out by contractual teachers calling for their integration” in the public sector, the teacher told Morocco World News.
Meanwhile, the current protests are directed at the new policy of unified status, which affects not only contract teachers but all educators, regardless of age, status, and years of service.
The new policy includes several “loopholes,” the teacher said, noting that under the new law teachers are entitled to more tasks other than teaching but without any compensation.
In the meantime, “school directors and inspectors, who don’t do any teaching, are benefiting from significant compensations, against contractual teachers who receive zero dirhams.”
The protesting teacher lamented that the challenges that teachers face also include “ a list of punishments” for “tiniest matters, including suspension or salary withholding, as well as other punishment like right to transfer for over two years or more, in addition to an unidentified number of teaching hours.”
The protesting teacher complained of a vague system that does not specify the number of hours that teachers should do on a weekly or monthly basis, pointing out that, under this new policy, a director has the right to call you whenever they deem it necessary.
“Our primary demand is the policy’s removal from the official gazette, or at least amending some of the challenges that are included,” she added.
Canceled classes amid ongoing strikes
As contract teachers protest for their demands, parents are frustrated with the situation because their children’s futures remain uncertain as dozens of classes are canceled..
Some parents are resorting to paid private tutoring to help their children make up for the canceled classes, while disadvantaged parents find themselves in financial captivity as inflation erodes their purchasing power.
Amid the continuing uncertainty, Morocco’s Prime Minister has pledged to improve the new policy through continued dialogue with all stakeholders.
On October 30, Aziz Akhannouch held meetings with a group of unions in the presence of Minister of Education Benmoussa and Minister of Economic Inclusion and Employment Younes Sekkouri.
In a statement, Akhnnouch’s office described the meetings as part of the ongoing process of implementing educational reforms and the dynamic dialogue with social partners to improve the public school system. The statement concluded by stressing the PM’s hope to hold similar meetings on the need to improve the status and conditions of national education civil servants.
Yet it remains to be seen whether any such future meeting could tackle the dire situation prevailing in the education sector, which is leaving parents – above all – concerned about the future of their children.
Moroccan teachers have been protesting since 2019, demanding their integration into the public sector after the Ministries of Education and Finance signed a joint agreement in 2016 to hire educators under contract.
