VZCZCXYZ0022
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHRB #0127/01 0391700
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 081700Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY RABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8124
INFO RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS 4663
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN 0590
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO 2280
RUEHTU/AMEMBASSY TUNIS 9496
RUEHCL/AMCONSUL CASABLANCA 3883

UNCLAS RABAT 000127 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON PGOV SCUL MO
SUBJECT: BROKEN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OFFERS NO EASY FIXES 
 
REF: CASABLANCA 0027 
 
¶1. (SBU) Sensitive but Unclassified - entire text. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Summary: The backdrop to our efforts to negotiate a 
bilateral agreement on American schools in Morocco is a 
national education system that is widely believed to be 
broken beyond repair.  This grim reality was highlighted in 
this week's World Bank report on education in the Middle East 
and North Africa.  While attendance at primary school is up 
significantly following years of concerted efforts, retention 
of students in later years is poor, so that only 13 percent 
of Moroccan students finish high school.  Spending is well 
below regional averages at 525 USD per student, despite 
significant increases over the past 20 years.  If the 
diagnosis of the system's failure is not in doubt, as was 
evident in Prime Minister El Fassi's observation this week 
that the World Bank study conveyed "nothing new," solutions 
remain elusive.  What is clear is that Morocco's poor 
education system limits social mobility, exacerbating social 
tensions and increasing disparities in income distribution. 
End Summary. 
 
¶3. (U) The World Bank's report on education in the MENA 
region, released earlier this week, confirmed once again that 
Morocco is lagging badly behind its peers in the educational 
realm, a reality that has been widely conceded for years, but 
that no government has yet been able to address effectively. 
The report showed that on issues ranging from access to 
education to gender equality and exam results, Morocco is 
well behind other countries in the region, including Tunisia 
and Jordan. 
 
¶4. (U) Recent workshops in Rabat confirm the diagnosis, and 
offer other alarming insights into the state of Moroccan 
education.  Of 100 students who enter primary school, 
statistics show only 13 will pass the baccalaureate exam (and 
only 3 of the 13 will do so on their first try).  The median 
length of school attendance is only 5 years, well short of 
the 10-12 year median elsewhere in the region.  Thus, school 
attendance drops to 74.5 percent by the age of 14, and to 48 
percent by the final years of high school.  Only 12 of 100 
students will go on to higher education, but of that group 
only between 4 and 10 percent will ultimately complete a 
degree.  The discouragement of such students is 
understandable, however, as unemployment rates are highest 
among the most educated groups in the country: 30 percent for 
those who completed the baccalaureate, but 45 percent for 
those who have a university diploma. 
 
¶5. (U) Of equal or greater concern is the failure of students 
to master basic skills.  A study carried out through the 
"Education For All" program showed that only 16 percent of 
students in the fourth year of primary school had mastered 
their course material, a failure rate of over 80 percent.  In 
some cities the rate was even worse, most notably in Ifrane, 
where the success rate was only 0.7 percent.  Scores on 
international exams confirm the poor results-- Moroccan 
students placed last of 25 countries in this age group in 
mathematics, and 24th on science.  In a separate exam, 
students placed 43rd out of 45 countries in reading, with 
only 25 percent of students attaining the minimum score 
required for their age group. 
 
¶6. (U) Looking at this overall picture, Education Minister 
Ahmed Akhchichine last month characterized the overall state 
of Moroccan education as "disastrous," notwithstanding 
improvement in headline figures such as the percentage of 
students attending primary school, particularly in rural 
areas.  Critics attribute this failure to poor school 
facilities and materials, noting that Morocco only spends 525 
dollars per pupil per year, compared to 1342 dollars in 
Tunisia (though only 612 in Turkey).  They also flag the 
failure to attract, motivate, and retain talented teachers. 
Teachers, they note, are inadequately trained, poorly paid, 
and lack motivation.  Many go into teaching as a last resort, 
since they cannot find other jobs.  While discussion has 
centered on the need to retrain this teaching corps, the 
government has yet to produce a plan to that effect. 
Instead, business as usual has continued, with announcement 
in early February that the Education Ministry will recruit 
1100 new teachers from the ranks of unemployed graduates. 
The news prompted a scathing editorial from the business 
daily "L'Economiste," arguing that "the majority of these 
unemployed graduates are not adapted to the imperatives of 
development in Morocco" and will "scrupulously reproduce" the 
failure evident in the poor test results in Ifrane. 
¶7. (U) Despite the increasing attention to the problem, the 
government has yet to show its hand on school reform.  Prime 
Minister El Fassi told the press on February 7 that the World 
Bank study "did not contain anything new," and that the 
government is already aware of the system's shortcomings, 
including dilapidated infrastructure, continuing problems 
with access, and failure to prepare graduates for the working 
world.  The Prime Minister admitted that "radical reform" is 
required, and said that proposals would be forthcoming after 
completion of an ongoing study of the sector.  (Minister 
Akhchichine separately indicated that the new reform 
initiative could be made public as early as March.) 
 
¶8. (U) For his part, Royal Advisor Meziane Belfkih, who was 
specifically charged by the King with overseeing education 
reform and has as much or more influence than the Minister 
himself, has floated several proposals, including seeking to 
raise school attendance to 95 percent by 2014 and to make it 
mandatory until the age of 15.  He has also suggested that 
the private sector needs to shoulder more of the load in 
basic education.  That system has expanded significantly and 
now represents over 8 percent of student enrollment, but he 
suggests that percentage should more than double to 20 
percent.  Accomplishment of this objective, in Akhchichine's 
view, however, will require development of an economic model 
for private education different from that which currently 
exists.  Both concede the need to address issues relating to 
teacher quality, and note that a survey of 2000 teachers is 
currently being conducted, and should be completed by the 
fall. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Complicating the government's situation is the fact 
that that the obvious solutions of increased spending and 
enlarged access have already been undertaken.  A recent 
evaluation by the Centre Marocain de Conjoncture noted that 
spending on education increased an average of 6 percent from 
1990 to 2005, or 3 percent in real terms, with the total 
(which increased from 11.2 to 26.8 billion MAD) representing 
an average of 24 to 26 percent of government spending each 
year.  This represented 5.9 percent of GDP in 2005, 9.3 
percent of GDP when university and private education are 
factored in.  This resulted in increased attendance at the 
primary level in particular, up from 54 to 92 percent 
overall, and from 39 to 88 percent in rural areas.  During 
that period, over 8000 new schools were put into service, and 
the ranks of teachers were augmented at a rate of 2.7 percent 
per year. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Government reform promises thus continue to 
engender widespread scepticism.  It is notable that Morocco's 
principal business lobbying group, the Cassablanca-based 
Confederation Generale des Entreprises du Maroc (CGEM), 
steered clear of the subject in its key reform 
recommendations to the El Fassi government.  The group's 
Secretary-General told us the decision was strategic: The 
 
SIPDIS 
group concedes that education reform is urgently needed, but 
believes that if it had focused on the larger problems of 
education, its recommendations would have been "put in a 
drawer and ignored."  By focusing on retraining programs to 
"correct the shortcomings" of the educational system, 
however, it believes it has an opportunity to secure action 
in the short to medium term. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Comment: CGEM's ability to focus on a particular 
sub-facet of the education issue is a luxury neither Morocco 
nor its government enjoys.  All admit that the failure of 
Morocco's education system to prepare the country's younger 
generations for the challenges of a global economy is a key 
constraint on Morocco's economic development, and it must be 
addressed urgently.  In addition, as a constraint to 
mobility, it has the potential to exacerbate social tensions 
linked to growing disparities of wealth.  All eyes are on the 
government to outline its plan of action to tackle the 
problem and El Fassi and his team will be judged in no small 
measure on what they are able to accomplish.  To date, 
however, successive Moroccan governments have shown only a 
limited capacity to address the ongoing education crisis, and 
we see no sign that this has changed.  End Summary. 
 
 
 
 
 
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Visit Embassy Rabat's Classified Website; 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/rabat 
***************************************** 
Riley