Date of Award
Fall 1983
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education
Abstract
The state of Moroccan education can be characterized by; (1) a national literacy rate of 20 percent in 1977, (2) a school enrollment of 1,036 per 10,000 inhabitants in 1977, (3) a primary school teacher-pupil ratio of forty to one in 1974, (4) retentions at fifth grade of 44 percent in the mid-1970's, (5) 20 percent of university students in 1976 were women. Considering the nature of education in practice, there appears to be discrepancies between the stated purposes (ideal) and actual implementation (real) of the major objectives of the seven development plans in Morocco since independence: Generalization, Moroccanization, Arabization, and Unification. To what extent have these objectives been achieved? In addition to the systematic search of documents through the seven development plans, and reports of the Ministry of Education, a survey was conducted with teachers and administrators. Generalization of education seems to be the most difficult objective to achieve because of the high demographic growth and the insufficiency of financial and human resources. Moroccanization of education has been the most successful objective in a quantitative respect. This positive result has been due to the massive training programs. Unification of education is almost achieved since public education is the most used type despite the State's recent efforts to encourage private education. Arabization of education is characterized by repeated, hesitant attempts since independence and is still one of the authorities' main preoccupations. Despite some partial success, education in Morocco is still unequal and selective. There is inequality according to sex favoring boys, and according to place of residency favoring the urban areas. Education is selective because 70 percent of pupils drop out of primary school and of the 30 percent remaining, 1/3 drop out of secondary school. The survey taken by teachers and administrators underlined the importance of two other objectives, Adaptation of education to the socio-economic needs, and Development of technical education. The future of education in Morocco depends upon the control of demographic growth, redress of the economic situation and decrease of social disparities.