Rabat – A total of 23,411 foreign students enrolled in Moroccan schools in 2021, Morocco’s Minister of Higher Education Abdellatif Miraoui announced on Saturday.
The number includes 19,256 students from African countries. Pupils from the African continent represent 83% of the total figure that enrolled in Moroccan schools, Miraoui said at the 2nd edition of the MD Sahara forum in Dakhla.
The increase in African students in Moroccan universities and higher education facilities reflects the “effective involvement of the kingdom in favor of strengthening its cooperation links with partners on the continent, within the framework of student mobility programs and teacher researchers,” the minister said.
He emphasized that the partnership between Moroccan and African universities has been strengthened across different fields including training, and joint research and development projects.
Morocco has made strengthening cooperation with its African partners a priority, the minister stressed, reaffirming that “sources of opportunities exist in Africa.”
In addition to education, Morocco also renewed commitment on sharing its expertise at different levels with its counterparts in Africa, such as helping others on the continent to solve food security challenges.
In 2022, Morocco’s phosphate giant OCP offered 550,000 metric tonnes of both donated and discounted fertilizers to help small farm holders across Africa tackle the severe impacts of the global fertilizer and food security crises.
CEO of Morocco’s fertilizer giant Mostafa Terrab, has recently emphasized Africa’s potential to tackle security challenges that affect many countries across the world.
“We [in Africa] should be totally self-sufficient, and even export,” Terrab said in an interview published by the Financial Times.
He stressed that “big opportunities” exist on the continent.
In addition to food security, Morocco also expressed its readiness to share its experience in counterterrorism and expertise with other countries from Africa.
“As a co-chair of the Africa Focus Group, Morocco remains committed to the stability and security of the African continent and will continue to support all initiatives and efforts aimed at eradicating the scourge of terrorism on African territory,” the director of global issues at Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ismail Chekkori said.
Chekkori made his remarks during a plenary meeting of the Africa Focus Group under the Global Coalition against Daesh held in Niamey, the capital of Niger earlier this week.
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