About 50 percent of university students in Morocco drop out without obtaining diplomas, said Minister of Higher Education, Abdellatif Miraoui in a presentation that painted a grim picture of higher learning in Morocco.
Unemployment rate of those who graduate has reach 18.7 percent for institutions with open access and 8.5 percent for institutions with limited access, said the minister in a presentation held earlier this week in the Supreme Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research.
He spoke of “the lack of language, horizontal and digital skills of graduates, which constitutes an obstacle to their integration into the labor market.”
Likewise, scientific research suffers from poor allocated resources and lack of coordination, driving the decline in the societal role of the university”.
With only one teacher for nearly 120 students in open access universities in Morocco, compared to 25 in Turkey, 45 in India, the rate of pedagogical supervision in the country remains below international standards,” said the minister.
This situation is exacerbated after the retirement of research professors in the short and medium term, as 2382 research professors are expected to retire by 2026.
Morocco has only 1,708 researchers per million people, a figure that remains weak compared to Brazil, which has 2,916 researchers per million people, or even neighboring countries such as Tunisia, which has 1772 research professors per million inhabitants.
Miraoui also reviewed the “decline in the university’s societal role,” pointing to “the growth of some behaviors that contradict ethics, principles of transparency and equal opportunities, in a context characterized by weak participation of Moroccan university students in social work and activities devoted to the spirit of citizenship.”
The minister has announced late October 2022 that in order to promote scientific research and innovation, a series of measures will be implemented in the academic year 2022-2023, including the training of a new generation of doctoral students and the establishment of three national institutes of thematic research to address national development priorities in areas such as health, water, and artificial intelligence.
These measures include the establishment of two new innovation poles, the support of innovative project leaders, the dissemination of scientific, technological, and innovation culture, and the mobilization of Moroccan skills worldwide, according to the same source.