Morocco promises to penalize foreign mission schools for assailing its values

Minister of education Chakib Benmoussa said his office is preparing to impose sanctions on foreign mission schools disrespecting the country’s cultural identity and territorial integrity.

Speaking during a parliment session on Monday, the minister said that during a parliament session that the said his  Moroccan government will impose sanctions

Benmoussa expressed doubts about the intentions behind some French institutions’ incomprehensible provocations, stressing that the Ministry of Education “notes from time to time, either through textbooks or teaching practices, the presence of dysfunctions.”

The ministry has “asked all local education managements to set up regional commissions responsible for exercising strict control over these establishments, whether on the programs or the textbooks used.”

“Everything must be in total conformity and in respect with national and religious values, national and territorial unity, as well as national identity,” he said.

The minister emphasised that the ministry ensures that Moroccan students studying in foreign mission schools receive courses covering the Arabic language, history, geography, and Moroccan culture, under “adequate conditions and in accordance with the official programs of national education.”

Benmoussa stressed the urgency to take serious actions against the inducements of these institutions and impose ‘’ necessary sanctions’’ to prevent further violations of the country’s values and principles in schools textbooks and classes. 

Benmoussa’s statements are responses to a series of controversies stirred following some foreign mission schools, particularly French establishments, were accused of providing ideologically- laden courses and questioning Morocco’s territorial integrity in their curricula.

A few months ago, parents of Moroccan students studying at the international Louis Massignon high school in Bouskoura, Casablanca vocalised concerns after discovering that the establishment used a truncated Moroccan map in one of its exam papers.

Member of Parliament Hanane Atarguine accused , in April,  some foreign mission schools of challenging the country’s sovereignty over Western Sahara and indoctrinating students into ideologies opposing the country’s religious identity.