Objective for the year 2015: The eradication of illiteracy.

Since the last few years, policy-makers in today’s Morocco express deep concern about the real scourge of illiteracy. Likewise, the promotion of education and culture turns out to be an issue of paramount importance, as it constitutes a vital factor for the strengthening of social cohesion, the edification of a society of knowledge and learning in the era of globalization, and its protection from atavist and obscurantist ideologies.

This willingness is obvious at the highest levels. It aims at making of the Kingdom of Morocco a modern State, and of Moroccans citizens who are aware of their rights, and attached to their Arab and Amazigh identity, while opening onto other cultures.

In order to achieve these objectives, many projects of reform have been launched, namely the upgrading of education systems through the adoption of a chart on Education and Training.

Schooling of young girls

Thanks to the spirited debates that gave substance to a national consensus, the reform of education, currently in force, endeavours particularly through the multiple projects, heavy and complex, to the general diffusion of fundamental education, the upgrading of human resources, and the improvement of the quality of education.

School programs will be attuned to the deep mutations witnessed by the Moroccan society. To put it mildly, the school curricula will incorporate disciplines relating to the human rights, or even to the new Family Code.

In their constant concern to engage each and every one in this march towards knowledge and learning based on parity of chances, public authorities have launched a campaign of generalization of fundamental education everywhere, which mainly targets young girls and women in rural areas.

Combating illiteracy is another project in the process of reforms launched since the accession of King Mohammed VI to the throne. Through large-scale campaigns, citizens, both women and men, are invited to join school in the spaces arranged for this purpose in mosques: A willingness to fight not only illiteracy but also and more particularly religious and civic ignorance.

The social cohesion is worth the price, and public authorities are firmly determined to work for the success of these actions.

Culture and identity

A revised and adjusted education also aims at reconciling the citizen with his collective identity, expressed in the Royal address of Ajdir on October 2001, by the announcement of the setting up of the Royal Institute for Amazigh Culture, a pluralistic institution devoted to studies and researches, aimed at the depolitization of the identity issue.

This novel reform of education, in force since one year ago, promotes the natural infatuation of Moroccans for the learning of foreign languages, through the multiplication of language centres and laboratories in the Kingdom at large.

Private and public education, which intelligently cohabited with other systems of education, which are already common place in Morocco (French, Spanish, and English systems), underlines this opening onto the others, and the contribution it makes to other cultures.

Another landmark specificity is the infatuation of Moroccans during the last years for arts and culture. The Kingdom has become a meeting place for the major international artistic events.

Today, thanks to the project of democratization and modernization of society, launched by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, culture has become a key- factor in the strategy of integrated and sustainable development.

In fact, a global and sustained support is mobilized for the rehabilitation of heritage, the promotion of production, the expansion and the revaluation of reception structures, the social promotion of artists, the organization of festivals, etc…

Culture fluids

During the last few years, the boost given to the cultural activity resulted in number of festivals, and Moussems, from that of Fez, which has become a “must” of the spiritual music in the World, Essaouira ( devoted to the culture of gnawa originated from the African culture of songhaï), Marrakech ( regional folklores for songs and dances), the intellectual forum of Asilah, the international festival of cinema in Marrakech….Morocco has become the favourite land of the prominent international film-makers, like Oliver Stone, or Ridley Scott, whose films reached a ceiling in the American box office.