“It is important to shift paradigm to move from schooling to learning because the quality of learning is a serious problem today”. This sentence was pronounced by Fouzi Lekjaâ, during the Convention of the National Initiative for Human Development (INDH) held last Monday in the city of Skhirat. For the Minister in charge of the Budget, it is imperative to rethink the education system towards a qualitative approach around three pillars: the student, the teacher, and the school.
Today, the situation is clear: initially, there are 4 million pupils in primary education, then only 1.9 million in higher education. Along the way, more than 50% of the total is lost. Of this number of students, only 900,000 get their university degrees. Even worse, only 20% of this number enter the job market. Suddenly, the losses are estimated at more than 3 million people excluded during this long road, while so many efforts have been made so that in the end less than 200,000 people find a job, says the minister. “Today, what society do we want for our country in 2050?”, asked Fouzi Lekjaâ who thinks that this major subject is so crucial that we cannot afford the luxury of spending a few years of political debates on the language. It should be said , however, that public education policies have been well supported financially. To convince his audience, Fouzi Lekjaâ mentioned some figures. Indeed, the successive reforms which concerned the sector have swallowed up staggering sums. In 2000, the National Education and Training Charter was put in place. The Charter was followed by the emergency plan in 2008. From 2015, the strategic vision was translated into a framework law. For these reforms, significant budgets have been mobilized. Indeed, from 2001 to 2014, nearly 450 billion MAD (about 45 billion USDs) were injected into National Education, and between 2015 to 2022, nearly 410 billion MAD (about 41 billion USDs). In addition, the National Education budget has increased from 21 billion MAD in 2001 to reach 62.5 billion MAD in 2022. This represents 5 points of GDP and 20% of the general state budget. Similarly, this project was accompanied by the recruitment of staff (civil servants and teachers). Overall, the ministry has benefited from an attrition replacement rate of around 200% and of a strong increase in the wage bill, i.e. more than 10 billion MAD (nearly 1 point of GDP) for the 2015-2022 period, said the minister.
Mohamed CHAOUI
