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Rabat – Abdessamad Haiker, deputy head of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) parliamentary group, has suggested that Education Minister Saad Berrada is unfit to manage such a critical sector for Morocco.
Haiker made his remarks during a meeting of the parliament’s Education, Culture, and Communication Committee on Tuesday to discuss the 2025-2026 academic year.
In his remark, Haiker accused the minister of having no connection to the sector and appointing regional directors “based on partisan considerations.”
He also accused the minister of ignoring the grievances Moroccans voiced during youth-led protests, criticizing the country’s “Riyada” (leadership) schools project launched in the 2023-2024 school year.
The project initially aimed to cover over 600 primary schools and was subsequently extended to more than 2,600 schools in the second phase.
One of its main goals is to cover 50% of all primary schools in the third phase in the 2025-2026 school year. The project aims to improve education quality and enhance students’ core competencies, focusing on diagnostic tools to identify areas of weakness.
According to the PJD, Haiker questioned the ministry’s data on the success of the leadership program, pointing to a “lack of discussion about private schools” that raises doubts about the “claimed success.”
Haiker also accused Berrada of oversights in rural areas, where he said that many schools lack electricity and water.
Recently, the education ministry said the leadership program enabled at least 67% of students to achieve basic skills compared to 30% in public schools.
Morocco has been witnessing a wave of protests across the country. The protests are called for by GenZ212, a youth-led movement advocating for critical reforms in the education and health sectors.
The demonstrations followed numerous reports highlighting the shortcomings of key public services.
A 2022 study from the World Bank lifted the curtain on the alarming state of the Moroccan education sector, noting that at least 64.9% of Moroccan children under the age of 10 are unable to read a simple text.
In June this year, the Ministry of Education shared another alarming statistic on school dropouts. Over 16,000 students drop out of middle school annually in Morocco, it revealed, noting that the overcrowding rate in middle and high school levels also persists at 12%.
