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Rabat – Morocco’s Ministry of National Education signed a landmark partnership with Fondation Al Mada on Wednesday to bring digital tools and training to hundreds of rural schools across the country.
The agreement, signed in the town of Fqih Ben Salah by Minister Mohamed Saad Berrada and Al Mada President Hassan Ouriagli, signals a major expansion of the “Connected Classrooms – Dir Iddik” initiative.
Launched last year, the project strives to turn digital technology into a real lever for educational fairness and innovation in Morocco’s most underserved areas.
At the heart of this collaboration lies a shared conviction that children in remote schools deserve the same access to 21st-century learning tools as their peers in cities.
The initiative originally equipped 30 schools across six regions, and it has already reached more than 12,000 students since March 2024. With the second phase now underway, the target has more than doubled.
By 2026, over 30,000 pupils are expected to benefit from new digital classrooms in at least 100 rural schools covering all 12 of Morocco’s regions.
The plan does not stop at installing equipment or providing internet access. The program places equal weight on training teachers and introducing students to coding, robotics, and even the basics of artificial intelligence. Teachers will receive in-depth training through the ministry’s “Everyone Can Code Caravan” initiative, which helps them run interactive workshops in rural classrooms.
In a parallel effort, Injaz Morocco, a non-profit organization, will introduce students to financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and local economic practices. The goal is to prepare children to understand technology and navigate the world beyond the school gates.
Berrada explained that the government’s broader school reform initiative already included 52 pilot schools with connected classrooms between 2023 and 2025. This new agreement seeks to build on that momentum and extend support to dozens more institutions.
Executives from the program’s corporate partners attended the ceremony, including Inwi CEO Azzedine El Mountassir Billah and Managem CEO Imad Toumi. All three partners have roots in rural Morocco, and the initiative reflects a deeper commitment to the regions where they operate.
What began as a small pilot now looks like the foundation for a national shift in rural education. In many of the schools already involved, students who once worked with chalkboards now use tablets. Teachers who never taught coding now lead workshops on robotics.
While the expansion of digital classrooms in rural Morocco is a commendable step toward modernizing education and reducing inequality, it does not address the deeper, more pressing challenges many children still face.
In vast rural areas, thousands of students remain out of school altogether, either because classrooms are miles away, roads are poor, or families rely on their children to help with farm work or income-generating activities. Without tackling these fundamental barriers, access, poverty, and infrastructure, the benefits of digital tools risk reaching only a fraction of those who need them most.
