Morocco’s parliament has adopted Law 59.24 on higher education and scientific research, a move that has prompted the country’s most representative university teachers’ union to announce a nationwide strike over what it calls a shift in academic governance carried out without genuine consultation.
The National Union of Higher Education said it would halt teaching and administrative activity across public universities on 3, 4 and 5 February to protest the law, accusing the government of pushing the reform through “in form and substance” without responding to union demands.
The union said the legislative process ignored repeated calls to suspend adoption and return the text to negotiations.
The dispute centres on how the law reshapes decision making inside universities.
The reform introduces a new Council of Administrators to accompany universities while retaining the University Council with revised composition, a change the government presents as a way to strengthen oversight and efficiency.
Union leaders say the new structure risks diluting the role of academics in favour of more centralised control, particularly as strategic and financial decisions become increasingly binding.
Presenting the bill in parliament, Azzedine El Midaoui said the text had been drafted “objectively and without ideological considerations” to modernize universities and allow them to respond to economic, technological and social change.
He cited the adoption of more than 70 amendments during parliamentary debate as evidence of openness. Union officials counter that core proposals related to governance safeguards and tuition clarity were not retained.
Another contested provision links the appointment of university presidents and heads of institutions to performance-based specifications.
The ministry says this will professionalise leadership. The union says it opens the door to discretionary appointments and contractual pressure that could weaken institutional independence.
The law also institutionalises a national master plan for higher education and a national strategy for scientific research, technology and innovation, intended to improve coordination and territorial equity.
Union representatives say the issue is not planning itself but who controls it, warning that strategic orientation could drift further away from university communities.
Union leaders say the most sensitive phase is still ahead. At least 11 implementing decrees are expected to define how governance bodies operate, how appointments are assessed and how funding mechanisms evolve.
“The law will pass, but the real risk is in the regulatory texts,” said Mustapha Fghir, a member of the union’s administrative committee, describing the strike as “pre-emptive pressure” aimed at shaping implementation.
While acknowledging limited responsiveness from the ministry on issues such as promotion criteria and recognition of certain doctoral degrees, the union says these concessions do not offset what it views as a structural rebalancing of power within public universities.
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