Morocco's education sector requires urgent government reform, report unveils

The National Assessment Body of the Higher Council for Education presented the results of the national “program for international student assessment” (PISA) report this Wednesday, February 9, unveiling the dire situation of the educational sector in Morocco, which requires urgent government reform and stronger infrastructure investments.

The report highlighted the biggest challenges facing the Moroccan education sector. The assessment tests 15-year-old students on their reading, scientific, and mathematical skills.

The report includes key elements that help understand the variety of factors that affect school performance, guide public education policies, and compare obtained findings with international norms and trends.

The program also assessed students on how their acquired skills helped them solve real-life problems.

This is Morocco’s first participation in the PISA assessment, along with 78 other countries, having surveyed 7,218 students from 180 schools in the country.

Most Moroccan students are ‘below average’ in basic academic skills

The findings of the report show that the level of student achievement in Morocco is poor when compared to international data, particularly among more disadvantaged students.

This is attributed to the lack of infrastructure and poor access to education in rural areas, including the significant bottlenecks in the public education sector.

According to the results presented on Wednesday, “less than a quarter of Moroccan 15-year-old students who participated in the survey have a minimum level of skills expected of their age.”

73% of surveyed students performed below-average in reading comprehension skills, 76% in mathematics, and 69% in science.

The report finds that only a mere 7% of students are found to be very proficient in science and mathematics, and 6% for reading and comprehension.

The survey also found that students from disadvantaged backgrounds, rural areas, and public schools have a lower level of proficiency than students from more favorable backgrounds.

However, 13% of Moroccan students from disadvantaged backgrounds are resilient, as the report found that “they manage to overcome socio-economic difficulties and are among the top 25% of performers in reading and comprehension at the national level.”

Alarming repetition rates across Moroccan schools

PISA also notes that the Moroccan education system is marked by a high failure and repetition rate, as 49% of 15-year-olds have repeated at least one grade. This is the highest repetition percentage recorded among all countries participating in the survey.

Repetition is particularly prevalent among boys, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, students studying in rural areas, and those in the public sector.

In a more detailed image, the report showed that 63% of grade repeaters are “disadvantaged children,” compared to 26% of repeating students coming from more advantaged backgrounds.

For additional context, 51% of grade repetition is noted in the public sector, compared to 22% in the private sector. In addition, 58% of students who repeated grades were boys, compared to 39% of girls.

Finally, 63% of rural students have repeated a grade at least once since starting school, compared to 45% in urban areas.

Repeaters have significantly lower levels of proficiency than non-repeaters, with score gaps of 82, 76, and 72 points respectively in reading and comprehension, mathematics, and science.

The report additionally confirmed a widely accepted fact in Morocco, which is that “girls perform better than boys overall, and specifically in reading and comprehension with 26 points, and science with 9 points respectively, but have the same level as their male peers in mathematics.”

Learning behavior, career aspirations, strongly affected by social-economic factors

The PISA survey looked at other crucial indicators, such as students’ learning behavior.

The results show that 58% of students think that their intelligence is fixed and that it cannot be developed, whereas having a growth mindset, or thinking that intelligence can be developed, is positively related to students’ scores.

Those who believe in evolving intellectual and academic capacities have been found to perform better than students who think their intelligence is fixed, with differences in scores of 24 points in science, and 26 points in math and reading.

In terms of educational and career aspirations, only 54% of students plan to continue their education after high school, 34% of them are driven by career aspirations that require a degree, and 20% because they are still undecided about their professional future.

30% of Moroccan students say they plan to enter the labor market right after high school, 14% because their chosen profession does not require higher education, while 17% are driven by hopes to achieve financial independence.

Under-qualified personnel and lack of resources

The report also sheds light on the unfortunate reality of “the means provided to the students in order to ensure their success and proper training.” The PISA survey shows that the learning conditions of students remain questionable.

Only 10% of teachers in Morocco have a master’s degree, and 65% have obtained a certificate of pedagogical qualification issued by authorities responsible for education and training. The share of teachers who have completed a training program of one year or more is 22%.

In terms of in-service training, only 29% of teachers participated in a formal professional development program related to teaching in the three months prior to the survey.

ICT resources are also lacking across Moroccan schools, where 24% of Moroccan students are enrolled in schools that do not have computers. For those who do, only 38% of available computers are connected to the Internet, while nearly 21 Moroccan teachers have to share a single computer connected to the Internet.

The lack or inadequacy of human, material or educational resources is once again, more prevalent in public schools, accommodating socio-economically disadvantaged students.

The report’s findings are based on a survey that was conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, many additional reports have found that overall, most education services have been badly disturbed by the pandemic.

Although alarming, the PISA survey’s findings have more likely gotten more severe and suffered additional degradation.