First Amazigh, Chinese Translators Graduate from Morocco’s King Fahd School

Amazigh became an official language of Morocco alongside Arabic in the 2011 constitution, and the country has since worked to expand its use in education, media, and public life.

Rabat – Morocco’s King Fahd School of Translation held its 38th graduation ceremony in Tangier on Saturday. This year’s class included the school’s very first group of translators trained specifically in Amazigh and Chinese.

A total of 109 students graduated in the 2025/2026 academic year. The school also honored top-performing graduates from the previous three graduating classes.

The graduates came from seven different training tracks covering both written translation and interpretation. These tracks combine three languages at a time, drawn from Arabic, Amazigh, French, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese. An eighth track focuses on translation, communication, and media.

A Milestone for the Amazigh Language

School director Mohammed Kharchich said this year marks the graduation of the first-ever group from the Arabic-Amazigh-French written translation track.

He described it as a pioneering academic project that puts into practice Morocco’s constitutional recognition of Amazigh as an official language. He added that an interpretation track in the same three languages will launch soon.

Amazigh (also called Tamazight) was recognized as an official language of Morocco alongside Arabic in the 2011 constitution. Since then, the country has gradually worked to expand its use in education, media, and public institutions. The new Arabic-Amazigh-French translation track is part of that broader effort.

A New Partnership with China

This year also saw the first graduates of a new Arabic-Chinese-English master’s program. The program was created through a partnership between Abdelmalek Essaadi University and Jiangxi University in China, with support from the Confucius Institute.

The Confucius Institute is a Chinese government-linked organization that promotes the Chinese language and culture abroad through partnerships with universities worldwide.

Kharchich said the school remains committed to building more partnerships with national and international institutions.

The King Fahd Higher School of Translation was founded in the mid-1980s and is part of Abdelmalek Essaadi University in Tangier. It has long been considered a leading institution in Morocco and the region for training professional translators and interpreters.