Zawaya

Education in the Maghreb has not achieved its objectives

By: Abdelaziz Karraky

The speech of President Barack Obama in Cairo University was not only limited to developing a road map which will certainly lead to building real peace in the Middle East, but it also pointed out the mechanisms of progress in the 21st century, namely education and innovation. This is consistent with the view of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in the 48th session of the International Conference on Education in Geneva, November 2008, under the slogan: “Inclusive education: the way of the future”. From here, a question is raised about the existence of sufficient will in the Maghreb countries to improve education and innovation, and create job opportunities for the youth, noting that innovation cannot be separated from education.

Despite the considerable efforts made by Maghreb countries in this area since their independence, by implementing free education, the deficit is still significant. The phenomenon of illiteracy is widespread, albeit being uneven from one country to another and from urban areas to rural ones within each country. Some countries in the region haven’t been able to generalize basic education for school-age children. So can the Maghreb countries be at the level recommended by the General Assembly of the United Nations, when it allocated the decade 2003-2012 to permanently wipe out illiteracy by the year 2012?

The various structural problems that education suffers from have led to all efforts made run into a number of difficulties, notably the need for increased expenditures over the years, while economic resources are known, limited, and mostly linked to foreign countries. This means that planned development programs in education and other areas remain under the mercy of global circumstances and the nature of international relations.

Talking about innovation leads us directly to talk about scientific research which benefits from small percentages of public budgets; while immediate needs require having them considered among priorities to benefit from considerable expenditures.

Education was considered throughout history as the best tool for social progress, but this is no longer possible in some Maghreb countries, as the young holders of the highest degrees suffer from unemployment, which has reached about 14% in Tunisia, and 9.1% in Morocco. Education is held responsible for this, considering that it no longer meets the needs of the job market in terms of specialized human resources. This has led some countries to review their entire educational policies, across a range of schemes, some of which were considered as an urgency as was the case in Morocco. However, what can be said is that the private sector in Maghreb countries still has a weak role, not only in the field of education, but also in the field of scientific research. We seldom see banks for instance contribute to funding education or scientific research, because they are mainly interested in engaging in quick and guaranteed profitable projects.