The first question that sprang to mind when I heard the news was: who really needs the other, Morocco or France? French education is in a crisis and Moroccan officials are clutching at a drowning man to save them. French education system is not even among the top ten and “what’s taught in French classrooms is not particularly interesting or relevant to most pupils”. This means the French system is lagging behind major industrial countries and does not deserve to be a model for countries – like ours – wanting to build an educational system that will prepare young people for the challenges of a fast changing world. So, it’s not a surprise anymore that our system of education has gone awry. We have been betting on the wrong horse since ‘independence’, and it's high time we took off the blinders and looked for better working education systems that leave no student behind.
Having experienced both the Francophone and Anglophone systems, I think I am in a good enough position to judge the French system of education as a failing one. It is an elitist system whose objective “since Napoleon, has been about producing brilliant elite who will run the country, and to hell with the rest”. It is, in addition, a system too theory-oriented and rarely includes discovery and hands-on learning. Its survival, though, is insured only by the dependency of Francophone countries, and particularly ex-colonies. So, the establishment of the so-called ‘Moroccan Baccalaureate in French Section’ is yet another French tactic to ensure the supply and the flow of the best cadres from Morocco to France because of the fierce international competition to gain the brains of the world. On the other hand, the Francophone students who come back home are prospective securers and protectors of long-term French interests in Morocco. They will defend French interests, bring more soccer coaches, favor French companies, buy villas and chalets in France, spend their holidays and free time in France, and marry French blondes and so on.
Another reason in support of the claim that it is France that needs Morocco is that the Moroccan-French partnership has never been a win-win one. Economically, the scale of partnership has always favored the old colonizer. Politically, France has often straddled our national issues and causes. In the field of education, which is the main focus of this post, France has usually been the biggest winner – brain gain – though “they eat our salt and lead the assault” as recent events testify: At a time when the Moroccan and French ministers of education, Rachid Benmokhtar and Vincent Peillon were signing three agreements that would benefit France more than Morocco, the Ambassador of France in Washington was describing Morocco as a “mistress with whom we sleep every night and, though we are not particularly in love with her, must defend.”
Also, this Moroccan Baccalaureate in French Section will certainly discriminate against average and struggling students and students from economically and socially disadvantaged families. That is to say, French famous Grandes Ecoles doors will be shut to the 'ordinary' Moroccan students. And once successful students are divided between the private school and the French school, public school will then be a laughing stock and a shameful place to go to.
As a reminder to those who need to be reminded, a whole slew of newspaper and website articles, the World Bank, and the Royal speech of August 2013 all admitted that our educational system is in a state of catastrophic collapse and needs serious reforms. However, the Moroccan Baccalaureate in French Section is not a serious reform but a zero-sum game where Morocco loses and France wins. Worse still, it is an exacerbation of the crisis because it will discriminate against students from poor backgrounds and against national public school, and will strip our public school from the little remaining value it has left.
All in all, the best performing education systems worldwide are those that give priority to public rather than private or elite schools and those that take public opinion into account. Conversely, less performing systems perpetuate social differences through elitism, disregard public opinion, and practice top-down bureaucratic management. So, which of the two diverging roads do the new education bosses want to lead us down? Wait and see.
