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Fez — The conversation around Morocco’s National Teacher Forum in Rabat this week did not stop at policy language or broad promises. It quickly shifted toward results, as researchers presented early findings suggesting the country’s “Pioneer Colleges” reform is already producing measurable gains in lower secondary education.
Presented yesterday by Andreas de Barros, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, alongside Florencia Devoto, director of the “Morocco Innovation and Evaluation Lab” at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), the study offered one of the clearest looks yet at how the reform is performing on the ground.
The study, titled “Beyond Basics: Whole-School Reform and Early Adolescent Development,” examines the first year of the “Pioneer Colleges” program launched in September 2024 in 232 public lower secondary schools.
Rather than centering on a single intervention, the reform combines intensive remediation, structured teaching, regular learning assessments, additional academic support, dropout prevention, psychosocial sessions, and extracurricular activities.
From the forum to the findings
The numbers presented in Rabat were striking. According to the evaluation, the reform reduced end-of-year dropout by 31.4% compared with similar non-reform schools, bringing the rate down from 5.1% to 3.5%. It also reduced grade repetition by 8.5 percentage points.
Researchers also found strong academic gains across Arabic, French, mathematics, and science. Students in reform schools improved by 0.52 standard deviations, which the study says amounts to more than triple the learning progress that would have been expected without the program. Science showed the biggest gains, followed by French, mathematics, and Arabic.
The study went further than test scores. It also found significant improvements in self-confidence, prosocial behavior, and self-discipline, with especially marked gains among students identified as being at higher risk of dropping out. Positive effects on creativity were also recorded for those students.
De Barros summed up the findings in direct terms: “This study shows that by focusing on sur the period key of early adolescence, a reform led at scale by the State can go beyond foundational learning: reduce school dropout by nearly a third, more than triple learning progress and strengthen socio-emotional skills.” The quote appeared in the French-language materials provided around the Rabat presentation, which also stressed that international evidence remains limited on whether public education systems can build those skills alongside academic achievement.
A reform now under closer scrutiny
Part of what gave the announcement weight was the institutional setting around it. The field implementation of the evaluation was led by UM6P’s MEL, while the ministry facilitated access to schools and administrative data.
At the same time, the methodological note says the study was designed, analyzed, and written independently by university researchers, with the full methodology preregistered in advance.
The evaluation used nationwide administrative data covering more than 637,000 student observations over two school years and primary assessment data collected from 20,036 students in 300 schools. More than 800 enumerators took part in the data collection effort, while nearly 9,745 students were also interviewed to assess socioemotional skills, school climate, and creativity.
That scale matters because the reform is no longer being framed as a contained trial. According to the forum presentation, the “Pioneer Colleges” program now covers more than 750 schools across Morocco as it continues to expand.
