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L’Opinion, the respected daily newspaper based in Rabat, provided a jarring headline in April 2015 titled“School delays and dropouts are killing schools.” The feature provided a blunt analysis of a report from the Council for Education, Training, and Scientific Research. “4.3 million students drop out before the second year of high school,” was among the data points noted in the long feature.
About seven million young Moroccans attended primary and secondary school in 2015. The challenges that public education faced a decade ago seemed countless. Among them, high dropout rates — especially among young men — infrastructure challenges in remote villages, and an education system focused as much on administrative job security as student performance. There was a growing exodus of public-school students turning to private schools. About fifteen percent of K-12 learners in Morocco were enrolled in private schools in 2015, almost double the number in 2008.
Add to this a moderate dose of skepticism about the value of extended in-class education, particularly in rural communities. In 2015, there was seemingly a level of comfort in teaching some subjects in French rather than Arabic. Real or imagined, this added to the workload of teachers and, likely, antipathy among students who sought cultural meaning and spiritual enrichment alongside scholarly achievement in public education. The discussion about education reform in 2015 was both policy-related and existential in nature.
Education is always a perplexing public policy issue — including in the United States, where K-12 education equity has been a challenge for decades, according to the US News & World Report headline in early 2015: “U.S. Education: Still Separate and Unequal.”
Among these significant education-related challenges, Morocco’s government instituted Vision 2015–2030, focused on three main pillars: Quality education (achievement and assessment); equity and equal opportunity (addressing disparities); and training for the 21st century (matching skills to the job market). A decade on, there is progress in ways large and small.
Morocco officially opened the 2025/2026 school year this week with approximately eight million students returning to classrooms across the country. Importantly, this number includes over 7 million students in public K-12 schools, supported by almost 300,000 teachers working in 12,441 learning institutions.
By comparison, California, similar in size and population to Morocco, has 5.8 million public K-12 students spread among nearly 10,000 learning institutions.
The challenges
Yet, the challenges remain. In April, education unions in Morocco announced a series of protests and strikes following the assault and death of a female teacher in Erfoud by one of her students. Teacher strikes are a recurring part of public life in Morocco as the education system undergoes reform and streamlining.
For teachers, there is a respectable MAD 87 billion ($8.5 billion) education budget this year along with increased teacher training opportunities, as continued teacher education is now the global norm and expectation. Though issues like limited-term teaching contracts and pensions will remain contentious, teachers are a genuinely important youth development resource.
Important insight from teachers themselves comes from the Moroccan Center for Citizenship. The center conducted a survey in November 2023 that shed light on Moroccan citizens’ views regarding education.
While the widespread perception of the quality of public education is low, survey results show that convenience (teaching/teacher flexibility) is a compelling factor for parents and students moving to private sector education. The education sector, it seems, may be a popular scapegoat for other perceived public grievances. Similar education-related policy discussions occur in the United States.
The pandemic took a heavy toll on student achievement in the United States. It has likely done the same in Morocco as evidenced by trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2023 study of international math and science abilities among 4th and 8th-grade students. But vocational skills are in demand more than ever as global supply chains shift and technical job skills rise in importance. Here is where there is a profound change in the acceptance and value of vocational training in Morocco — and not just in rural towns.
The good news
The number of new students entering public primary education rose to 730,000, a 7.4% increase from last year. The education ministry added 2,461 classrooms and 15 new boarding facilities in rural regions across Morocco. Early childhood education, once the purview of the urban affluent, received a funding boost — over 2,500 new classrooms to help accommodate 663,000 pre-school-aged children currently enrolled in public programs. Education Minister Mohamed Saad Berrada conducted field visits to several schools to highlight the priority of serving students with the requisite resources.
In 2025, a total of 250,075 candidates passed the 2025 regular session of Morocco’s all-important baccalaureate exam. According to results from the Ministry of National Education, that is a 1.5% increase in successful candidates compared to the 2024 session. Female students outperformed male students in passing the Bac test by nine points, 71% versus 62%.
This is the education system’s belated response to the many students who dropped out in middle school and high school. The ministry opened 60 new “Second Chance” centers, with a total enrollment of 35,000 students. The United States Millennium Challenge Corporation’s (MCC) $450 million Morocco Employability and Land Compact was initiated in 2022 to promote jobs and growth. By investing in 15 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) centers across Morocco, the compact will connect youth to jobs and markets.
While many Lycée graduates may want to pursue careers in the public sector, including jobs as public teachers, the Moroccan economy has undergone a profound change over the past decade, which now requires young workers with diverse skills that embrace the traditional (mathematics) and the cutting-edge (robotics engineering). Tanger Med port has gone from a Moroccan shipment hub to a continental global trade hub. Though the automotive sector still thrives, Casablanca is now Africa’s top-rated financial center.
Yes, youth unemployment will remain high across the Maghreb region as the economy shifts to urbanized services and global growth projections remain modest. But Morocco’s education system is beginning to respond to numerous factors, not least of which is the under-thirty population looking for job options, including inside the classroom.
In fits and starts, through economic turmoil, a global health pandemic, teacher strikes, a catastrophic earthquake, and numerous international student evaluations, Morocco’s evolving K-12 education system finds itself in 2025 as relevant as ever to student success — no matter the headlines.
