Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The challenges Facing 9/4 Elections in Morocco
Noureddine Boutahar


The king of Morocco Mohammed VI's intervention in his last speech to remind both
political parties and the voters of the purpose and spirit of elections is a clear and solid proof of the failure of our political parties and our system of education in the formation of ‘good’ Moroccan citizens. For decades now, both – parties and education – have been wasting taxpayer money and time without achieving the desired results. So, here we are again, preparing to start from scratch, with the big question in mind, “can we make it this time?”
I, personally, don’t think so because of the poor educational and cultural level of the people who vote. Bear in mind that the well-educated, the elite class, and the intelligentsia do not usually make it to the polls. So, the remaining poor and less educated who cast their ballots are prone to be deceived, cheated, or even bought because they often lack the protection and power of good education and knowledge to save them from the trickery and intrigues of politicians to make the right and best choice in the election of their representatives.
It's noteworthy that this section of society includes two subdivisions: one population is completely and hopelessly illiterate and the other population is in unenviable semi-illiteracy. The semi-illiterate has received a low-quality education that has made it ‘neither fish nor fowl’. However, both are vulnerable politically and economically because they suffer from a basic knowledge deficit to improve their political awareness in areas like democracy and the workings of political institutions. This is because our Moroccan Makhzen (ruling elite) doesn’t want quality education for all as it is a dangerous force for change which puts its interests at stake. Sadly, a couple of ministers in this government recently blamed the Moroccan people – who are the real victims in our political system - for the problems we have at present instead of the real original obstacles.
The severest and most pressing of these obstacles is education. All the education reforms in this country since independence have been a flop and have produced the kind of people that policy makers and officials are blaming and complaining about. Our education system has hit the skids because there is no real, strong political will to reform it. Reforming it would hurt the advantages and interests of the ruling elite. Consequently, our schools are sending out into the world a generation of young men and women whose majority can ‘neither fly nor walk’ for themselves but who can only follow the crowd. It should be no surprise, then, that people are more selfish than ever before; that our moral standards are rock bottom; that foul language and swear words are filling our streets; that sword-wielding thugs are roaming our streets and raiding people’s homes; and that good manners and right conduct are things of the past. Therefore, it will come as no surprise to anyone that the 9/4 elections, under such circumstances, will fail to achieve their purpose and will fail to have the desired results.
The second contributor in this puzzle is the political parties themselves. They are in a real crisis and cannot activate the citizens or train the candidates. People have grown increasingly frustrated with them because they are too weak to tackle their own perennial internal party problems, let alone the country’s. The major factor that fritters away their credibility is their exaggerated and unrealistic promises in the run-up to the elections: These soon break and decay when they hit the brick wall of reality and Makhzen resistance. Also, people are fed up with political parties bickering and never ending battles. Many of our political parties waste their time - and ours - calling each other names instead of focusing on our priorities. In addition, political parties, admittedly, “base their political action and election program on an ideology”, however, many of our political parties do not have a unifying ideology or principles or ideals; they emerged or were made from a vacuum to serve individual or a group of individual interests.

Let’s not forget also that people are tired of seeing political parties who make it to power spend most of their time wooing the Makhzen and trying to please the deep state. They dare not initiate any kind of real reform or approach the big corruption files lest they get their fingers burned. And because there are too many political parties - more that 30 – means that no one party ever wins an outright majority, and the ‘winning’ one always needs the help of small parties who have their own interests and agendas. This way, the government always ends up with too many spokes in the wheel, which renders it inefficient and impotent to effect any fundamental reform.

In brief, I am steadfast in my belief that the outcome of the September 4th elections will not, once again, yield desired results because our education is bastardized and plagued by failed policies and shortsighted decisions. Our political parties are weak, disorganized, lack strong roots in society and fail to get the support of thinkers, theoreticians, and influential academicians. However, the main takeaway for me is that if the ruling elite do not get off their high horse and make necessary concessions, both political parties and education will remain mired in their problems, which is not in the interests of the country as a whole.


Monday, February 2, 2015

Teachers Give Life
Noureddine Boutahar


There has been a scorched-earth campaign against teachers and public education in Morocco recently. Teacher-bashing has become a national pastime that selfish corporates have been encouraging and propagating to further hidden agendas and vested, narrow interests which are none but the privatization of the sector. In fact, blaming teachers for the failure of the Moroccan education is totally ridiculous and misplaced, and it is meant to distract us from the real causes and expedite the process of privatization.
There is not a dollop of truth to the accusation that teachers are responsible for all that ails our schools. Our education is sick because of top-down, corporate-driven, for-profit reforms. Even well-intentioned plans and projects of reform on the part of the governments have often been infected with proverbial wolves in sheep’s clothing that lurk for opportunities to wring out personal benefits. In addition to complicated corruption cases, there is the problem of privatization whose proponents are working at full throttle to take control of our national education. They spare no effort to persuade the public and policy makers that the nation’s public schools are failing - and teachers are to blame.
There is not even a modicum of truth in the allegation that teachers are responsible for the failure of our schools. Our education fails because our schools are ill-equipped, our teachers are poorly-trained, and our curricula are dull and irrelevant. For schools, most of them are really dilapidated, overcrowded, and lack appropriate equipment for both physical and educational needs – unless they call the hand-me-down scrap from China equipment. As regards teachers, they are the making of the system’s Universities and teacher training schools. So, if there is anyone to blame here, it is the system itself not the teacher-victim. Finally, our curricula have always been top-down scriptures that focus on quantity at the expense of quality. These curricula are meant to create semi-literate, malleable, and robotic citizens.
There is not a shred of truth in the claim that teachers are responsible for the deficiency of our educational system. Teachers have always gone above and beyond for their students. Many teachers routinely spend money out of their own pockets on photocopies and other supplies for their students. I know of teachers who bought clothes and school supplies for students. I know of others who painted their classrooms and fixed cracks and electrical plugs in their classrooms out of their own money. In addition, teaching not only takes a toll on teachers' pockets but also remains "the only profession where you steal supplies from home and take them to work". I think, no other professional can claim to have done so.
There is not a grain of truth in the incrimination of teachers as the cause of all Moroccan educational problems. Teaching is one of the most humane professions on earth and teachers are saints and heroes and paragons of virtue. They are the shoulder-to-cry-on for most students who bring not only their ignorance and different learning styles to school but also their fears, worries, and family struggles. Whenever there is a family problem, a death, or a tragedy, it is usually the teachers who discuss it with the children first. It is the teachers who brood them under their wings until they get over their difficult period. For this reason, teachers are obliged to know every one of their students’ names (more than a hundred each year), their learning styles, their unique personalities, their performance, their challenges etc. They play multi-faced roles including that of educators, disciplinarians, psychologists and psychiatrists, advisors, and much more.
There is not a particle of truth in the claim that teachers have it cushy. Teachers are often envied for long summer breaks and other holidays. However, there is more than meets the eye here: Teachers work 24/7 and juggle between different responsibilities. In fact, teachers work nights, days, and weekends sacrificing time with their family to correct mounds of papers, prepare lesson plans, make quizzes, tests, and exams, and do administrative work and so on. Also, teachers often have poor and disturbed sleep because they are haunted by the students they didn’t reach, the violent unruly kids they didn’t understand, and the lessons they taught wrong. In short, teachers are worn-out, over-worked, and underpaid but they keep on serving selflessly, patiently, and modestly.
There is not a seed of truth in the indictment of teachers as the root problem in education. The truth is there are great and bad teachers just as there are great and bad doctors, lawyers, politicians, businessmen and so on. So, it’s not fair to single out teachers and judge them with biased wrong standards when there is usually a bad apple in every bunch. It is undemocratic to condemn the majority with the sins of the minority. It is true that there are individuals who do not belong in education, who abuse their profession, and who misbehave, but these individuals should remain a strange anomaly and not the norm. Allowing such micro-fraction of bad teachers to cast a negative shadow on the rest is a grave injustice against this profession.
There is not an iota of truth to many of the accusations targeting teachers and public schools because they are mainly meant to manipulate public opinion to accept privatization as an antidote. However, it is worth mentioning that education is more than a right and much more than a service delivered to a consumer. Education is essential to life and nurtures the mind as food nurtures the body. So, handing it over to businessmen and foreign organizations puts the health (and mind) of Moroccan citizens in jeopardy and threatens the very existence of this country and its legacy. More to the point, teaching is the profession that makes all other professions and should be free, compulsory and accessible to everyone.
Yes, there is a jot of truth in the Minister of National Education’s statement that “good teachers are a rare commodity” because good teachers are lost in the chaos created by corruption, conspiracies, impunity, unaccountability, and other social ills that eat away at our society. There are great teachers, good teachers, and bad teachers as well. The latter have to be weeded out once the recruitment is fair and non-discriminatory, appropriate good training is afforded, working conditions are provided, salaries are raised to match teachers’ workload, and teachers are considered partners rather than adversaries.
To conclude, what we need, so far, is a radical paradigm shift in thinking about education including the way teachers are trained, treated and looked at. So, let’s start where the best performing education systems like Finland and Singapore started: high-quality pre-service and in-service training for teacher, deeply thoughtful relevant curricula, and quality teaching and learning materials. Let’s not commit such huge moral mistake of throwing our kids into the gaping mouths of businessmen because, “Democracy’s sacred mission is to protect and empower everyone equally by the provision of public resources, what we call the Public.” I rest my case.