"Public sector cannot create enough jobs," says minister of education amid teaching contest controversy

In an exclusive interview with Hespress, the Minister of primary education and sports, Chakib Benmoussa commented on the national controversy towards the conditions of the next year’s teaching context, “unveiling” the reasons behind the new amended conditions.

The new conditions’ controversy

The announcement of the new conditions of the 2022 teaching contest raised outrage among young Moroccans as they took the streets to protest “the unfairness” of excluding candidates who are older than 30 years old or those who are working currently in the private sector from passing the next year’s test.

Limiting the age of candidates to 30 years old and younger contradicts the Basic Law of Public Service, which sets the legal age for employment at 45 years, and the Basic Regulations of the Regional Academies of Education and Training, which sets it at 40 years old.

Benmoussa said “nothing can prevent the new age limit of being amended”, as he added that every job requires its own rules.

“Every profession needs its own rules, and you will find the same conditions set when the exams for judges and police are announced. Rather, this condition was previously used in regional centers, and for various reasons, this age was raised at a specific stage,” said Benmoussa.

The newly appointed Education minister says that the age limit came to enhance productivity and efficiency in the profession, as experts specialized in training centers say young people benefit more from various forms of training and have higher performance, declared Benmoussa without including any data or sources.

The education minister added that those who lost the opportunity to join the contest, will benefit from the government’s projects in enhancing the national and international investments, since “whatever the efforts of the state, the public sector cannot create enough jobs,” added Benmoussa.

The teachers’ training stages in 2022

The Ministry aims to restore “the nobility of the teaching job” and create the school of quality, ambitious goals that Benmoussa admits will not be achieved with the age limit only.

Intense training is Benmoussa’s next step to assure the efficiency of candidates, those who pass the first test will spend 6 to 7 months in the training centers as unofficial trainers, and a positive evaluation will qualify them to become official trainers for one year before joining the schools as teachers.

Contractual teachers continuous strikes

The teaching profession in the Kingdom is living in continuous controversy since amending the contractual hiring system in 2018. Those who get hired under the contractual system, the so-called teachers who were forced to contract, have been holding numerous strikes protesting the new hiring system and asking for improving the teachers’ situation in the kingdom.

The education minister says that he noticed personally the dissatisfaction among teachers during his visits to schools, as the ministry opened the door for social dialogue with the teachers’ unions, where the two parties committed to coming up with a common vision by the start of December.

Benmoussa aspires to reach, with the unions, a “new statute for teachers” as well as innovative solutions to the situation of the academies’ professionals, so-called contractual teachers, in order to get out of the “non-dialogue” situation, says the minister.