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Rabat – Saaid Amzazi, Morocco’s Government Spokesperson and Minister of National Education, Vocational Training, Higher Education and Scientific Research, met on Tuesday, September 7, with the representative bodies of the private education sector nationwide.
The meeting was organized to explain the reasons for the postponement of the start of the school year to October 1, and emphasize that the ministry’s main concern is to preserve the health of children and educational staff.
Amzazi spoke at length about the progress of the vaccination campaign targeting students aged 12 to 17 years, launched on Tuesday, August 31, in all regions across Morocco.
In addition, the minister announced that the school calendar of the current year will be modified and that it will be extended until July 2022.
During the meeting, Amzazi also called on the representative bodies of the private school sector to engage in the vaccination process and accelerate its pace to ensure collective immunity and a safe school season for all people involved.
For their part, the representatives of the various bodies participating in this meeting supported the initiative of the Minister to consider October as the first month of the 2021-2022 school year and to exempt parents of students from the September school fees.
Parents and private schools were outraged by the government’s recent announcement of yet another delay of the school year.
The postponement caused indignation among many Moroccan parents – from working parents who cannot afford to attend to their young children during work hours, to those worried about their (accumulated) backlog, and their prolonged distance from school, as a social development space.
Some parents reacted to the news of yet another postponement of the school year by launching a petition demanding the opening of schools and daycares. To date, nearly 4,000 people have signed the petition.
Other parents also organized demonstrations to protest private school fees for the month of September.
Saaid Amzazi’s initiative to meet with concerned authorities came as a result of intense public indignation.
The Ministry of Education maintains that the decision to postpone the start of the school year is motivated by the pressing need to preserve the downward epidemic curve of COVID-19, and avoid a resurgence of contamination.
The ministry is aiming for a high vaccination rate among students, before allowing students back to educational establishments.
To this date, over 290,650 students between the ages of 12 and 17 received their first dose of the vaccine.
