Education: After French, Morocco to Introduce Spanish Baccalaureate

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Fez- The Ministry of Education will soon introduce a “Spanish option” to the international Moroccan high school diploma beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, according to Moroccan news website Alyaoum24.

The decision came after a meeting on Moroccan- Spanish cooperation in education held last week in Rabat between the Moroccan Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Mr. Rachid Belmokhtar, and the Spanish Ambassador to Morocco, Mr. Jose de Carvajal.

The new program is intended to “foster the ministry’s policy seeking to diversify high school diplomas by integrating all foreign languages adopted in the Moroccan education programs,” said the Ministry in a press release carried by MAP, the state news agency.

The new baccalaureate will be first adopted in Rabat, Casablanca, Fez, Tangier, Tetouan, Larache, and Nador, where the Spanish cultural center “Cervantes” has a presence, and will gradually be extended to other cities.

Currently, about ten percent of students chose Spanish as their second language.

The Education Ministers of the two countries are set to meet in May in Madrid, where they are expected to agree on details on how to implement this agreement.

Additionally, the Moroccan Education Ministry is working on launching an international Moroccan high school diploma “English option,” as a part of the Ministry’s policy to reform the national education system.

According to the same source, Education professionals criticize the ministry for adopting a similar plan of action as used for the French language, calling for a new strategy to boost the presence of English in Moroccan schools.

Moroccan Minister of Higher Education Lahcen Daoudi declared in an interview with Alyaoum 24 last month that the Ministry’s policy of continuing with the French baccalaureate is “a dubious solution” to Morocco’s ailing education system, explaining that “French is no longer useful.”

Edited by Melissa Smyth