Education in Morocco: High Territorial Disparities and Severe Inequalities Constituting a Roadblock for Sustainable Development and Human Development

In less than 50 years, the Moroccan education system has reached an almost unmanageable saturation. In the aftermath of independence, the Moroccan public school was able to gradually integrate children from different socio-economic backgrounds. Despite the lack of material and human resources, the relative equality of opportunity allowed the sons of workers and poor peasants to reach the highest steps of the podium. At the dawn of the 3rd millennium, although almost all Moroccan children can enroll in the first year of primary school, only a lucky few have the possibility of finishing higher education and finding a decent work. The bankruptcy of our educational system has become a tautology among the simple citizen as among the highest authority of the country. The Moroccan education system is leaning more and more towards teaching that loses its quality, encouraging school drop-out, cultivating inequity in knowledge, training with a little chance of employment and favoring an inherited social ascent which reinforces the poverty trap. Beyond the acquisition of knowledge, inequalities in education constitute multidimensional and multi-scale barriers affecting health, employment, income, human and technological development, and well-being at all levels: individual, family and societal. The huge territorial disparity in education between regions, provinces or municipalities of the same country is also unacceptable.

Decision-makers are called upon to rapidly deploy a strategy aimed at reducing inequalities in education and restoring equal opportunities for all Moroccan girls and boys, regardless of their colour, mother tongue, place of birth or parents’ socio-economic status. At a time of great debate on the new development model in Morocco, equitable and quality education remains one of the pillars without which sustainable and equitable development cannot be built.

Keywords: Education; Territorial disparities; Inequalities; Drop-out; Mean years of schooling

Education is an inalienable right that must be accessible to all citizens, regardless of gender, place of residence, socioeconomic level or other. Consequently, any quantitative or qualitative discrimination in the educational process undermines the fundamental rights of Moroccan children and hinders their aspiration to a fair social ascent for a life full of well-being. The royal speech of October 13, 2017 at the opening of the first session of the 2nd legislative year of the 10th legislature gave a clarification on this subject: “....Today, Moroccans want their children to benefit from quality education, which is not limited to developing reading and writing skills, but which offers them the guarantee of embracing the world of knowledge and communication; quality education that allows them to access the labour market, and to integrate easily, and that contributes to individual and collective promotion. Andnot an education that works like a machine to produce legions of unemployed diplomas…” [1].

As stated in the CSEFRS (Higher Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research) report titled “A School of Social Justice: Contribution to the Reflection on the Development Model”, “Moroccan public schools suffer from the effects of social inequalities. Each pupil integrates the school with his social heritage. The social deficits that manifest themselves through the poverty and precariousness of families, the illiteracy of parents as well as their difficulties in monitoring their children’s schooling, have a negative effect on learning at school...” [2]. Conversely, an inequitable education system also creates the “multidimensional poverty trap” and contributes to socio-economic inequalities. Unfortunately, official figures show that the Moroccan education system is far from being fair.

In this paper, without being exhaustive, we use striking examples to illustrate the phenomenon of inequalities in education in Morocco. To do this, we mainly rely on recent data such as those of the Territorial Atlas of Disparities in Education 2017, the Territorial Atlas of School Dropouts and other publications published in particular by the Higher Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research [2-5], HCP [6], DEPF [7] and CESE [8]. The disaggregated data available allows us to compare the education of boys and girls, in urban and rural areas, according to the region or municipality of residence, the professional and educational levels of parents and others.

According to the RGPH 2004 and RGPH 2014 censuses, the national illiteracy rate of the population aged 10 and over was reduced from 43% in 2004 to 32% in 2014. However, the rate varies significantly with the milieu of residence (urban -rural) and sex. In 2014, rural people (41.9%) were almost twice as likely to be illiterate as urban people (22.1%) and women (47.7%) were more than twice as affected by illiteracy as men (22.1%). If we consider the cumulative phenomenon of disadvantages, we find that the illiteracy rate among rural women (60.4%) is 4.4 times that of urban men (13.7%) (Table 1) [6].

Table 1: Illiteracy rate of the population aged 10 years and over by sex and milieu of residence.

Figure 1 below clearly illustrates that illiteracy rate also varies by regions. The illiteracy rate in the Beni Mellal-Khénifra region (38.7%) is almost double that of the Laayoune-Sakia al Hamra region (20.3%). Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab (M-F gap: 9%) is the region that shows the lowest difference between men and women while the highest gap is recorded in the region of Guelmim-Oued Noun (M-F gap: 23.2%).

In 2014, the national school enrolment rate for children aged 7 to 12 was 94.7% with a difference of 5.6% between urban (97.1%) and rural (91.5%) and almost the same level between boys (95.2%) and girls (94.1%). Regionally, the enrolment rate varied from 92.9% in the Oriental region to 98.4% in the Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra region. However, the relatively high enrolment rate is mitigated by the drop-out phenomenon at different levels. Indeed, the Territorial Atlas of school drop-out published by the CSEFRS in 2019 illustrates this persistent and penalizing phenomenon for the Moroccan education system. It indicates, for example, that ‘’The largest gap between the two sexes is observed in the 6th year of primary school in rural areas, where the drop-out rate reaches 23.4% for girls against 13.6% for boys’’ [4]. Figure 2 (a) and (b) below gives the drop-out rates for girls and boys in rural and urban areas for the 6th year of primary school, the 3rd year of college and the 2nd year of the baccalaureate.

In 2015, more than half a million (508,300) school dropouts were recorded in the primary (179,533), college (195,949) and qualifying secondary (132,821) cycles, representing 8.8% of the total school population. As shown in Figure 3 below, after a significant slow in the drop-out rate in 2016 (407,674), the trend started to rise again to reach 431,876 dropouts in 2018. The middle school was particularly affected by the drop-out which reached the rate of 14.3% in 2018.

The drop-out rate in the 3rd year of college (Figure 5 (a)) and in the 2nd year of the baccalaureate (Figure 5 (b)) shows the same type of inequitable distribution between communes within each region and between different regions. Once again, we find communes with a minimum of drop-out opposed to communes with exceptionally high drop-out rates.

Focusing particularly on disparities and inequalities in access to education, the Territorial Atlas of Disparities in Education 2017 considers two indicators:

1. The average years of schooling which provides information on the level of human capital,

2. The Gini index of education which assesses inequality and disparity in access to education.

The estimation of these indicators makes it possible to compare the situation of the Moroccan education system with that of other countries in the world, but it also makes it possible to highlight the inequalities at the levels of the regions, provinces, and communes in order to give a pragmatic meaning to the slogan ‘’school of equity’’.

The Territorial Atlas of disparities in education 2017 is based on the year 2014 which offers disaggregated data at the municipal level, and which can also be considered as a reference year for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Comparison of the Moroccan education system with that of other countries in the world

With an average number of years of schooling of 5.64 in 2014 for the population aged 15 and over, Morocco ranked 136th out of 175 countries considered. Table 2 below shows that the majority of Arab countries have a higher average year of schooling than Morocco. As a corollary, the proportion of the population of students aged 15 and over who reached the higher level was 8.5% in 2014, comparable to 8.4% in 2000 for MENA and to 9.8% in the early seventies for developed countries [3]. In addition to a national schooling average that seriously concerns the Moroccan authorities, the Gini index of education (0.55) indicates that education in Morocco is very inequitable, placing Morocco 150th in terms of equality and opportunities in access to education.

In summary, the two indicators clearly indicate that Morocco must find urgent and optimal solutions to face simultaneously two major challenges: (a) increase the national average of schooling and (b) reduce inequalities in education.

Table 2: Average years of schooling in selected Arab countries.

Average years of schooling and territorial disparity by Moroccan regions

The average years of schooling by region varies from a minimum of 4.76 years in the Marrakech-Safi region to a maximum of 7.08 years in the Laayoune Sakia El Hamra region. While the Gini index of education shows relatively less inter-regional variation, with Marrakech-Safi (0.58) showing the most inequality in terms of education, opposed to Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra (0.42) which appears as the most equitable region in education (Figure 6).

Average years of schooling and territorial disparity by Moroccan municipalities or rural communes

Average years of schooling

Considering the disaggregated data at the municipal level as presented in the Territorial Atlas of Disparities in Education 2017, we discover incredible but real gaps. Indeed, Figure 7 below summarizes the information by indicating, for each region, the municipality with the highest average years of schooling and the one with the lowest average years of schooling. We can thus see that the region of Rabat-Salé-Kénitra beats the record for inequality in education with 10.5 years of difference between the municipality of Agdal Riyad (12.15) and the commune Bahhara Ouled Ayad (1.65) and that with 0.48 as average years of schooling, the Oulad Ali Mansour commune which is located in the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region has the lowest average years of schooling among all municipalities and rural communes in Morocco. At the national level, the difference between the “most educated” municipality and the “least educated” rural commune reaches 11.67 years.

The phenomenon of disparity in education affects all Moroccan municipalities/communes (1282 rural and 256 urban) but rural communes are the most affected since the last 1043 municipalities/ communes in the classification are all rural communes with a number of years of schooling less than 4.1 years.

It is absurd to see that on the one hand, the average number of years of schooling in certain municipalities belonging to the regions of Rabat-Salé-Kénitra and Casablanca-Settat, such as Agdal Riyad (12.15), Harhoura (Mun.) (11.23), El Maarif (Arrond.) (10.51), Souissi (Arrond.) (10.00), Assoukhour Assawda (Arrond.) (9.99) and Hassan (Arrond.) (9.90), is comparable to that of certain developed countries. On the other hand, the average number of years of schooling hardly exceeds one year in the communes of Oulad Ali Mansour (Tétouan) (0.48), Bouchaouene (Figuig) (0.75), Tahelouante (Essaouira) (0.76), Bouabout Amdlane (Chichaoua) (0.8), Oulad M’hammed (Taourirt) (0.82) and Assais (Essaouira (0.9) (Figure 7).

Gini index of education

According to the same data provided by the Territorial Atlas of Disparities in Education 2017, it appears that in addition to inter-municipal disparities, intra-municipal variations are also intolerable. Indeed, the Gini index in education makes it possible to measure the level of inequality in each municipality/commune. The closer the Gini index is to 0 (respectively close to 1), the more the municipality/commune is fair (respectively unfair). A graphic illustration is given by Figure 8 which shows that in each region, the most inequitable commune has a Gini index of education close to 1 and that even in the Municipalities/communes which are supposed to be the most equitable, the index of Gini is relatively high.

Moroccan education system doubly affected by low years of schooling and inequality

Despite the efforts made and although the trend of inequalities in education is decreasing, strong inequalities characterize the Moroccan education system, marked by a low level of years of schooling (5.64 years) in 2014, combined with a very high Gini index of education (0.55) compared to other countries of the same economic level (Figure 9 (a) and (b)).

In what follows, we use international tests that allows a comparison of Moroccan pupils’ skills with their counterparts from different countries around the world. We consider: The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is one of the world’s most comprehensive and reliable indicator of students’ capabilities. It is a triennial survey of 15-year-old students carried out by the OECD in order to assess the performance of students in reading, mathematics and sciences in a large number of developed and developing countries around the world. The triennial PISA-report constitutes a pragmatic plate form that allows to share evidence of the best policies and practices, and to offer a timely and targeted support to help countries provide the best education possible for all of their students [9].

The PISA-2018 scores show great variations among the 79 countries and economies which participated to this survey. Scores varied from 340 to 555 in reading, from 325 to 591 in mathematics and from 336 to 590 in science. Morocco is among the countries with the lowest scores in the three domains considered. Indeed, with scores of 359, 368 and 377 in reading, mathematics, and sciences respectively, Morocco was ranked 75th out 79 countries and economies that participated to this test. With 0.1% in the top performers in at least one subject, Morocco was the least performer while it was among the four countries with the highest rate of low achievers in all three subjects (Table 3) [9].

In order to analyse the impact of the socio-economic context of students on their performance, PISA uses the index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) which is derived from three variables related to family background, namely: parents’ highest level of education (PARED), parents’ highest occupational status (HISEI), and home possessions (HOMEPOS) which is a proxy measure for family wealth. Pupils belonging to the first quartile of the ESCS are considered as socio-economically and culturally “disadvantaged” while pupils belonging to the last quartile of the ESCS are qualified as “advantaged”. On the basis of the PISA-2018 ESCS index, Morocco ranks last among all the countries participating in the PISA 2018 program. With an average ESCS index of -1.89, Morocco comes below Indonesia (-1.57), the Philippines (-1.42) and Thailand (-1.30) and is lagging very far behind the countries of OECD (-0.03) and more precisely Iceland (0.55), Norway (0.54), Denmark (0.52), Canada (0.42), Sweden (0.36) and Finland (0.30) [99]. It should be stressed that more than 56% of Moroccan pupils are in the lower decile of the distribution of the index of the socioeconomic status of all participating countries while the proportion of Moroccan students belonging to top decile of countries participating in PISA 2018 does not exceed 1.1% [10].

The PISA scores show that the Moroccan education system suffers from two crucial problems. The first one is the low level of Moroccan students’ performance compared to OECD countries and other developing countries while the inequalities engendered by the economic, social, and cultural status of students constitute the second important issue.

Table 3: PISA-2018 scores in reading, mathematics, and science. B-S-J-Z(China): Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

Morocco’s participation, since 1999, in the international TIMSS and PIRLS surveys as well as the establishment of the National Program for the Evaluation of Achievements (PNEA) in 2008, are part of a framework that makes it possible to evaluate the academic performance of Moroccan pupils and guide public policies in education for better performance in quantity and quality. The TIMSS is an international survey that compares the performance of elementary and middle school students in a number of countries around the world based on student achievement in mathematics and science (physics, chemistry, natural sciences)). This survey is organized every four years. Since its first participation in 1999, Morocco obtained only mediocre results (far below the average which is 500), in comparison with the other participating countries (Table 4) [11].

Table 4: scores of Moroccan students on TIMSS tests.

Taking part in the 6th edition of the TIMSS survey in 2019, Morocco was able to improve its results compared to previous editions. Nevertheless, the country is still remaining in the last ranks below the international average. Figure 10 below shows that for Mathematics 4th year tests in 2019, Morocco ranked 54th out of 58 countries while in Mathematics 8th year, Morocco ranked 39th out of 39 countries.

Similarly, in Sciences 4th year Morocco ranked 55th out of 58 countries while in Sciences 8th year, Morocco ranked 36th out of 39 countries.

According to the CSEFRS report which analysed the results of Moroccan students in the TIMSS-2015 survey, the lowest level of performance (defined at 400 points) was not reached by 59% of students in mathematics and 65% in science in the 4th year and the percentages concerning the 8th year in these 2 subjects are of the same order (59% and 53%) [6]. In an attempt to explain this scourge, the report points out, among other things, that (a) More than 36% of pupils in the 4th year and 46% in the 8th year show academic delay, (b) Almost a third of the pupils in the 4th year have no pre-school education, (c) the 8th grade students have more difficulty in reasoning, (d) Data and statistics in mathematics and earth and biology in science are the weakest.

It should be noted that in addition to the mediocre results obtained on average by Morocco, significant variations characterize the distributions according to the school environment and classroom activities as well as the family environment, including the professional level of the parents, educational resources available at home, parents’ attitudes towards mathematics and science, weekly time spent on homework, etc.

Figure 11 below shows that students’ scores depend on the level of education of their parents. The average score of pupils whose parents have a doctorate level of education (438) exceeds by 100 points that of pupils whose parents are illiterate or without a certificate.

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)

The scores obtained by Moroccan pupils in the PIRLS tests are similar to those obtained according to PISA and TIMSS surveys. Indeed, results of the PIRLS 2011 4th Grade reading showed that, with a low mean score of 310, Morocco was ranked 45th out 45 countries. Moreover, Morocco had the most inequitable distribution with the top 10% mean score (453) more than 2.5 times higher than the bottom 10% mean score (178) while the top 5% performance (489) exceeding 3.3 times the bottom 5% performance (146) [12].

According to PIRLS 2016 Reading-Fourth Grade, Moroccan pupils improved their absolute mean scored (358) but, relatively, they remained at the tail, ranking 48th out of 50 countries (Figure 12).

a. Morocco is unable to take off from its poor ranking in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI) mainly because of education (130th in 2013, 126th in 2015, 121st in 2019 and 123d in 2021). In addition, the country loses a good part of the value of its HDI because of inequalities and more specifically inequalities in education. Indeed, the 2016 UNDP human development report indicates that Morocco lost almost 30% of its HDI in 2015 (from 0.647 to 0.456) with a large loss in education (46%) while the losses due to inequalities in income (23%) and health (16%) are lower [13,14].

b. With the mean years of schooling less than 6 years (5.9 years in 2021), Morocco has a high Multidimensional Poverty Index (MDPI) mainly affected by education and especially the low mean years of schooling (Figure 13).

c. The 2016 PNEA study indicates that ‘’the pupil effect, made up of what the learner, by integrating the school, carries as social heritage, is 80% compared to the school effect (20%). These impacts learning in a public school which is unable to reduce social inequalities due to a lack of adequate strategies and differentiated teaching methods targeting students in difficulty” [5].

d. Higher education is becoming increasingly inequitable. Moroccan students do not have the same chances of accessing private higher education institutions or non-university institutions. Discriminatory access characterizes public higher education institutions that offer a regulated system and an unregulated system. The latter, which welcomes the majority of students, breaks the records for dropping out in the first year (25%), after two years (40%) and leaving without a diploma (64%). On the other hand, the regulated system ensures training with almost no loss of years but to do so, it requires a rigid selection at entry, generally based on very high scores which can only be obtained by paying an exorbitant cost for studying hours out of school.

e. The education system can be considered responsible for young people who find themselves in the category called NEET (not in Education, Employment or Training). According to HCP indicators, “in 2016, nearly one in four young people aged 15 to 24, i.e. 1.68 million at the national level, do not work, are not in school or training. This proportion is more pronounced among young women, reaching 44% (1.32 million), compared to 11.7% among young men (366 thousand)’’ [15].

Strong inequalities characterize the Moroccan education system ranging from preschool to higher education. Spatial disparities reach inconceivable levels, especially between advantaged and disadvantaged municipalities or communes. Inequity in education undermines the fundamental rights of all Moroccan children regardless of their gender, place of residence, socioeconomic level, or others. After independence, despite the lack of human and material resources, the Moroccan public school was able to gradually integrate children from different socio-economic backgrounds. This is how the sons of workers and poor peasants seized equal opportunities to prove that they could obtain the best diplomas and occupy the heaviest positions in the Moroccan administration. Unfortunately, the Moroccan education system fell relatively quickly to find itself in a catastrophic situation with the advent of the 3rd Millennium. Currently, the Moroccan education faces three crucial problems. Decision makers should act urgently to deal with the low mean of schooling years, the qualitative level of students’ achievements and the problem engendered by socioeconomic inequalities and territorial disparities on education. As long as education remains behind, the country will not be able to improve its ranking in the human development index. Moreover, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will not be easy.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

(Nelson Mandela)

None.

No conflict of interest.

1. Kingdom of Morocco Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation African . Excerpt from the royal speech of October 13, 2017 at the opening of the first session of the 2nd year legislative of the 10th legislature.
2. CSEFRS (2019) A school of social justice : contribution to the reflection on the development model.
3. CESEFRS (2017) The territorial atlas of disparities in education.
4. CESEFRS (2019) The territorial atlas of school dropout: Analysis of the paths of the 2014-2018 cohort and municipal mapping.
5. CSEFRS (2015) Results of Moroccan students in Mathematics and Sciences in an international context TIMSS 2015.
6. HCP (2014) General Population and Housing Census.
7. DEPF (2018) The question of social inequalities: keys to understanding, issues and public policy responses: Education, a major source of inequalities.
8. EESC (2017) Focus on the 2017 annual report: Regional and territorial inequalities
9. OECD (2019) PISA 2018 Results (Volume I): What Students Know and Can Do, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris.
10. OECD (2019) PISA 2018 Results (Volume II): Where all Students Can Succeed, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris.
11. Trends in International Mathematics and Sciences Study (TIMMS) (2015).
12. PIRLS (2016) PIRLS Results in Reading.
13. UNDP (2016) Human Development Report 2016. Human development for everyone.
14. UNDP (2021-2022) Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World.
15. HCP (2018) Les indicateurs sociaux au Maroc, édition