Missions Impossible: Higher Education and Policymaking in the Arab World by John Waterbury

Author:John Waterbury [Waterbury, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education, Middle Eastern, Political Science, World, Higher, Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789774169632
Google: HqTWxwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 55918241
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Published: 2020-01-15T11:16:04+00:00

Morocco

Morocco illustrates well the role of external actors in the reform process, as well as the considerations lying outside the educational sector that may move reform along. Relative to other Arab states Morocco has been a vigorous reformer at all levels of education. At the same time it has been something of a laggard in terms of basic socioeconomic indicators such as literacy levels, female participation rates, and (in)equality of income distribution.

Morocco’s king appoints the government. He is directly responsible for security, defense, the judiciary, and religious life. He supervises but is not directly responsible for the ministries involved in social and economic policy, including education. Therefore, he can criticize those whom he has appointed without implicating himself. King Mohammed VI has often been unsparing in his criticism of educational and other reform efforts, noting their failure to reach their self-assigned goals. For example, in his speech from the throne in July 2004, he set 2010 as the deadline for “reaching quality education.” The Plan d’Urgence of 2009 signaled that that goal was receding. Even the mass demonstrations of February 2011 did not galvanize the reform effort, and in 2013, again in his speech from the throne, Mohammed VI talked of certain (university) specializations being factories of unemployment.11

The experience of Morocco since 1983 provides a representative example of the role of third parties in promoting educational reform. In that year Morocco entered into a structural adjustment program to correct macroeconomic imbalances. One of the main economic reforms was to contain public spending and to lower the deficit. The World Bank and the IMF identified the public sector wage bill as one of the problems (Clément, 1995; Bou Hassan, 1997). Early retirement programs were implemented across the civil service (Kleich Drey, 2008; Mrabi, 2013; Kingdom of Morocco, 2018).

The structural adjustment process led to a reduction in outlays on education of 11 percent between 1983 and 1989. It was accompanied by a program to deregulate and privatize parts of the education system. A series of reform programs was launched, beginning in 1999 with the National Education and Training Charter, followed by the Education Emergency Program of 2009–2012 (Plan d’Urgence) and the Education Action Plan of 2013–2016. By this time Morocco was led by the moderate Islamist party, the Party of Justice and Development (PJD), under Head of Government Abdelilah Benkirane. He was clearly comfortable with the spirit of neoliberal reform. Speaking in November at the fiftieth anniversary of the African Development Bank, he declared that “it is time that the state withdraws from certain sectors, such as healthcare and education and that the role of the state should be limited to assisting private operators who want to engage in these sectors” (Moroccan Coalition for Education for All et al. 2014).

In Chapter 5, we noted some of the governance reforms of these years in Morocco. There was the move to strengthen the universities’ corporate identity, including their right to invest in or create private enterprises. They were linked to Morocco’s seventeen regions in order to promote regional development and employment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.