Article published in the Journal Hebdomadaire / December 2007
The university is a crossroads. It wants it open to its socio-economic but it is also fertile ground for dissent. We want the interaction with the company, it is monopolized by unions. More than secondary or primary school, higher education is adversely affected by our rate of unemployment. Discredited and cataloged as "unemployed machine", the Moroccan university needed a reform. This reform has been adopted and entered into force in 2003. It produced its first graduates in 2006. Time for a first progress report is not she come? How the university reform she faced the test of field? Between the dispute and forced them complacency and blind other events between rigor and warnings authoritarian actors of our higher education are often at odds. Some have already endorsed the failure of reform, others make it an absolute dogma Law 01-00 on Higher Education. Meanwhile, the reform is undertaken. People hurry please wait ...
Some facs between weak and claims
University Moulay Ismail, Meknes. It is 17 hours. Classrooms are emptying and alleys come alive. Central to the establishment enthroned student associations. A fund to support the family of a deceased student is highlighted. Some, almost furtively slipped a piece there. At a time of prayer, a small battalion of believers was formed on the central lawn. Younis, a student activist close to Al Adl Wal Ihsan, the opportunity to explain his claims: "It is not normal that has no place of prayer. That's the most important although there are many other problems such as scholarships that have at least a month late, some courses have not started and an obvious problem of local and sometimes security . Reform? "It is suffered much more than acceding . Everything seems summarized in this sentence. Between weak and claims targeted the university of today no longer believe in the big night, any more than tomorrows. Rumbling and discontent: in December, strike action at the national level was launched by students, with the main slogan, the opposition to the reform and the challenge to its educational component.
Side teachers, even depression. A union official Meknassi Warns trainers: "In our faculty with 10 000 students, 150 teachers were and are called to a sixty secondary contractors. We clearly lack of trained personnel . Another professor, rbati it laments the level of its students Economics: " reform so far has no practical effect on the quality of education. How would you improve the level with students who do not even know their alphabet? I know that reform takes time, but I am very pessimistic .
Still in Rabat, the president of the University Mohammed V - Agdal, Abdelhafid Boutaleb is very upset when he asks questions too insistent on the success or failure of reform. Just admit that " voluntary departure has caused great harm to the university "and that" reform lack of resources. " For the rest everything is fine. For a former president of the National Union of Higher Education (Snesup), it is hard enough with his fellow teachers and is sensitive to discourse on their chronic absenteeism. He stresses the "instigators " who take their chair to a forum which, by politicizing their course, lack the most basic ethics faculty.
actors University Moroccan and return the ball: the students feel are the forgotten reform, teachers are calling for a university to the limits of its human and material means, with respect to administrative officials, nose to the grindstone, they seek recognition of work already accomplished, and they require time.
Emergency and ambition
Time is nevertheless a very rare commodity. It is now twelve years since the alarm was pulled, twelve years that the finding is made of a university in crisis. Hassan II in 1995 had moved a World Bank report that stigmatized the Moroccan education system performance. Teaching then appeared as a priority, it was clear the backlog for several decades in terms of international standards. A literacy rate to be ashamed, mass unemployment and universities were deemed uncontrollable fear the worst for Morocco. In 1999, Hassan II appointed Abdelaziz Meziane Belfkih at the head of the Special Education Training Commission (COSEF). In January 2000, COSEF publishes a National Charter for Education and Training. The same year was passed in parliament Law 01-00 on the organization of higher education. The reform began to be applied in the fall 2003. Four years later, where are we?
The approach initiated under the leadership of Abdelaziz Meziane Belfkih is not neutral. The result justifies itself. In an environment often hostile to reform, it was necessary to establish a consensus. Morocco is very fond of consensus. But it has established a minimum on a charter plans certainly impeccable values and goals. By acknowledging and defending the right of all citizens to education, Charter lifted a taboo. Available in 19 levers, she responded to a need for clarity and was intended operational. Yet it is criticized for not having managed to combine the desirable with the feasible . Everything would have been presented as both an ideal and a reality. Ambitious in its objectives and noble in its intentions, the charter is well worthy of the most advanced countries.
But by focusing on consensus, it has also ignored the urgency of the situation. For more than a yard or two legislatures, the question of teaching is the struggle of a reign. Since 1999, four successive Ministers of Education, so that the same Meziane Belfkih which has always headed the COSEF and then took the head of the Higher Council of Education (CSE) was established in 2007. Thence to conclude that the Palace is that the pilot reform, there is only one step. Especially since the latest negotiations for government formation have revealed the reluctance of political parties to accept the portfolio of Education. Yet any reform outside the Government raises questions that necessarily remain inaudible, particularly in terms of responsibility and timelines. A king can take his time for a government is a luxury.
without budget reform
Doubts about the effectiveness of the reform make sense when we compare the ambition and the relative thinness of the budget. If Abdelhafid Boutaleb recognizes the lack of resources, other officials argue that " reform did not require large expenditures. Is the reorganization of the financial system that has helped cushion the costs .
Indeed, the figures show no significant increase in the budget related to the implementation of the reform. In 2003, the year of reform, the budget for higher education has even a setback. In 2006, the Higher Education drained 5.3 billion dirhams, including 3.7 on salaries. The investment has raised just 560 million dirhams, half of which was used at the central level. The 14 universities and 25 colleges in the country have shared and a capital budget starved evaluated 250 million dirhams. For comparison, the only university of Paris IV-Sorbonne in France has a budget of 32 million. What is very little compared to 730 million euros from Princeton in the United States. Roughly speaking, in Morocco from 1999 to 2006, the weight of wages has doubled, and that scholarship has declined 23%, grants to university cities have stagnated. Only significant increases: the budget allocated to scientific research which doubles while remaining at a paltry, and grants to universities increased by almost 25%.
These figures are very revealing assumptions of the reform: it relies on universities with presidents of autonomous prerogatives expanded. They are the real levers of reform. So much qu'Abdelhafid Boutaleb rejects any "ministerial hierarchy ": " is a misnomer, it does not correspond to reality: I have no hierarchy . Mustapha Bennouna, Chairman of the University of Tetouan, Tanger said the autonomy it provides: " Now the department plays a role of assessment than management . Initiated by the House, the reform is thus applied by the university presidents. A sort of tacit agreement seems to have been passed between the Palace and the political parties, especially the very USFP located on the Ground: Meziane Belfkih the project's overall architecture, political parties participating in the selection of chairpersons of university, and therefore a right to inspect the implementation of the reform. With the arrival of Ahmed Akhchichine, a nonpartisan minister, the situation may have changed: the political parties stand to lose a little more control of a reform that's left Youssoufi initially wanted to put to his credit.
generations sacrificed?
reform has sinned by lack of means and no one claimed responsibility, but it is the field test that rewards success and punishes failure. Specifically, the reform of higher education rests on two main areas: an educational component that builds on the BMD system and a structural component comes in three slogans, independence, openness and governance. However, on the ground, the two axes are far from unanimous. The consensus aspired charter has fizzled and discontent is palpable now.
Azeddine has now left college, he is one of the first generation of "redundant reform": "I was a guinea pig reform. All I can say is that there was a big organizational problem. The return was always rather late. The teachers seemed lost with continuous monitoring and semesters. The students were very angry when they announced a mini-part of a week to another .
Larbi Assal, former dean at Meknes, has no words harsh enough to describe the effects of the reform: "It a fiasco! There was no improvement, we just changed packaging. Universities are always care! It would have been upset traditions, but since the left is in government, university is abandoned to itself. The main thing that everyone keeps quiet .
Tel rbati denounces another teacher education leading to half-courses spread over only two and a half months: "It's too condensed . There is clearly a problem of assimilation for students. Moreover, the issue of absenteeism is far from settled: catching up with multiple possible there are many overlapping courses and therefore the absences. In one of my classes, about twenty students, only six regularly come .
Mekki Zouaoui contributed to the report for the anniversary and became interested in education issues. When asked about the status of the Moroccan educational system, he said that the kingdom come a long way: "We must contextualize In 1940, the enrollment rate did not exceed 1% in 1956 it reached 10% difficulty. But if reform is broadly in the right direction , missed opportunities abound. For example, in 2001, there has been a phenomenal increase in pay teachers, but nothing has been considered for training. But the real problem of education in Morocco is that we do not have enough trainers valid .
The consensus of the Charter and the aspired reform is apparently far from being achieved. The skepticism is reinforced by the absence of a timetable for evaluating the reform. No statistics are yet available in universities on the employability of first fired. The public's legitimate questions abut the lack of visibility and the lack of progress report. When will we be able to establish a first assessment of the reform? Cabinards Some insist on the indivisibility of secondary and higher education: "We can not really judge the effects of reform, even on higher education, when it has produced its first graduates is to say in 2009, as current students are still suffering from secondary education they received. We can say that these generations sacrificed. This is the price of reform . Mustapha Bennouna, he thinks that " we can make judgments about reform around 2012, when the first doctoral students who have completed their entire education at the university under the sign of reform. " Obviously, most officials agree that the day of reckoning has not yet come. And everyone seems to expect the creation of the national evaluation agency recommended by the World Bank and IMF.
battalions of unemployed
And yet, some signals are alarming. Much emphasis was placed on the lack of opportunities for students enrolled in Arts in Islamic Studies or Law and Economics and sometimes Science. The faculties of Humanities and Sciences faculties legal, economic and social have long been regarded as sidings, unemployed as factories to open shortly on the world of business and employment. Yet the four years since the reform came into force can not detect any reflux of new registrations in these courses without opportunities. In 1999, there were more than 30 000 new students to enroll in Law and Economics in 2005, there were 2,000 more. Regarding the Humanities, enrollment growth is even more disturbing: in six years, we went from 19 000 new registrants to more than 25 000. This disturbing trend seems to be perverse of the Arabization of Secondary taught Arabic in high school, science subjects are then in French, often forcing students to turn to the Arabic channels they believe more accessible.
The linguistic dimension is here its full potential. Mekki Zouaoui notes a "profound linguistic insecurity which erects barriers between students. No language is completely controlled . Lack of trainers, sidings, linguistic insecurity ... these problems seem far from settled: the students and recent graduates rarely have reliable information on the content of education they want and pursue their opportunities. Administrative officials are more than aware of these pitfalls. But suppose a campaign to overcome targeted communication and time-consuming coordination with secondary schools. The creation in 1994 of the Faculties of Science and Technology (FST), which are institutions with a limited number of approximately 2000 students, wanted to respond to the lack of quality of teaching. But TSP also suffer from a lack of trainers. And they are not yet a sufficient alternative to the 80,000 students enrolled annually in universities free access.
Meanwhile, battalions of unemployed still coming future disarmed on the job market. But these generations sacrificed on the altar of reform is not lost for everybody: on this ground of injustice flourished Islamist opposition.
Souleiman Bencheikh
The LMD
system Licence / Master / Doctorate replaced the old system of a license in four years followed by a doctorate degree and a thesis of State for the bravest. It now takes three years to get a license, five for a master's degree and eight to get a PhD. The BMD system has the merit of corresponding to international standards and should allow greater foreign recognition of diplomas issued by the Moroccan universities. It is the educational component of the reform and rests on four pillars: semesters, continuous monitoring, modularization, capitalization.
Ø Semesters: We opted for a "pure semesters, the semester has become the teacher but also administratively. On the field, however, encounter difficulties semesters of application: delays in the academic and cumbersome review process, and deliberations of catching up in the middle of the year tend to shorten the effective duration lessons.
Ø Continuous : To streamline the examination system, still very expensive, we have introduced a note in the assessment of continuous monitoring. Everything is then the responsibility of the teacher who expected his students to submit a schedule of his planned course in which a duty is on the table. This measure is widely criticized by students who complain of lack of organization of some teachers.
Ø Modules: Modularization credit system responds to that found in European countries. A module corresponds to a certain number of credits. To obtain their license, students must validate 24 modules, four modules per semester.
Ø Capitalization: Inside a same seminar, a student may spend the next semester even though he has not released all its modules. Load modules to catch him that he is missing and which are also priority over other teachings. Hence a problem of duplication of courses and absenteeism. Hence also a lack of visibility for students: from how many modules he misses becomes impossible to enroll in next semester?
The university governance
With the educational aspect, Governance is the second part of the reform of higher education. It relies on universities much more autonomy than in the past, including management of budgets much more decentralized. The procedure for appointment of university presidents and deans of faculty is part of the governance component of the reform. They are not appointed by resolution royal, with all that that implies arbitrary. A call for applications has now passed. All candidates explain their project to the commission of five members from both academia and civil society. Commissions then hold three names are submitted to the Palace. Responding to the interests of transparency and meritocracy, however this new approach gives rise to all sorts of criticism: some complain the cumbersome process especially for deans, others believe that it was a means of involving political parties, especially the left, the system of co-optation at the head of public institutions. Several appointments process of presidents and deans have also been invalidated without more is known, giving rise to all sorts of speculation about the transparency and effectiveness This new governance.
Higher education in dates
TIME ERRORS
1977, the philosophy is not taught in universities
1979, Islamic studies make their entrance to the University
1980, gradual departure of foreign teachers
1995 report severe World Bank
THE TIME OF THE REFORM
March 1999, creating the COSEF chaired by Meziane Belfkih
October 1999 a Charter of education is made public
2000, a law on the organization of higher education is promulgated
2003, the law comes into effect in universities
TIME RESULTS
2006, first generation of "redundant reform, opening Masters selective pay and
2007, COSEF is dissolved and replaced by the CSE, the institution of a rating agency is still expected
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