Education in Morocco: School X

 I decided to focus on Morocco for my project, first because it has an illiteracy rate of 30%, but also because my connection to it would probably allow me to put much more effort and heart in my work, than if I were to work somewhere else, and finally because I recently found out about a staggering study that has been made in collaboration between the world bank and the national observatory for human development. This study seeks to evaluate the level of professors in Morocco, especially in private and public schools, excluding international schools. They gave teachers fake tests from primary schools, in three subjects that are math, French and Arabic, and they considered that a good teacher would be one that can detect at least 80% of the mistakes made by kids.  It has been shown, that for mathematics, 70% of the teachers were detecting 80% of the mistakes so we can consider that 70% of math teachers are qualified enough. Now, what is the percentage of teachers that were able to detect more than 80% of mistakes from an Arabic test? 4% of professors were able to detect more than 80% of the mistakes.  What about French? For French classes, 0% of the teachers were detecting more than 80% of the mistakes made by students. The results of this study can possibly be applied in the same way for higher education in Morocco.

Clearly, Moroccan people suffer from a lack of educational opportunities, simply because the best private schools like the one I have been to are too expensive, and public ones are not good enough. Professors are not good enough, and their students, therefore, can’t find success. As a result, every year, thousands of young students, thousands of bright young Moroccan minds fail to have access to better education and to reach their full potential. Nowadays, when people think about waste, they mostly think about food and plastic waste, however, what I see here is a waste of potential, a waste of intelligent people that can learn and help their countries progress. We don’t have good professors, and this is because we don’t value education enough.

There are few ways one can have an impact, and what I want to do is to give smart Moroccan kids the opportunity to have access to better educational opportunities, and thus to facilitate social mobility. The average Moroccan income is of 400$, and most of the people in Morocco end up working in Morocco, which means that the smartest people that don’t have the financial means to study in a foreign country, might making their way through school because they are smart but will end up going to Moroccan universities, but won’t make as much as they can when they graduate. My Idea is to create a boarding School that cooperates with the government, and gets the list of the best Moroccan students, whether they are rich or poor. With that list, our school will be able to target those students that have the potential to compete at the international level and our goal will be to save them from the careers that they will probably end up having if they stay. Initial investments would allow us to pay for great teachers, and our goal would be to form these students and get them access to the best universities worldwide that have either a need-blind or a need-based policy.

However, if the book that we all read taught us one thing, it’s that we need to make it sustainable if we are trying to make an actual impact in the long run, rather than pouring water on sand. The idea is to offer two payments options for richer and poorer students. The students who don’t have any money would sign an income sharing agreement with us, because even though they get full scholarships, we would have to finance their living expenses when they are abroad, and we would take a percentage of their salary when they get a job after they graduate, but pay for their living expenses, with the money that we will get upfront from the richer kids that will pay for their years in our boarding school. At the end, they will all probably end up getting jobs that pay them at least 10 times what they would have made, had they stayed in Morocco.

In the long-run, I have no doubt that the students that we would have helped will feel the need to come back to Morocco, when they have enough experience from working in a foreign country, and to give back to our country by using their excellent education to make our country a better place. Having students go to great universities also mean that our school will have access to their network, and potentially bring other students that want to work with us and help them get into the best schools of the planet. Ultimately, I believe that allowing Moroccan kids to reach their full potential would be to totally change the workings of my country, making it a place where the focus is nothing else than people and potential.      

When it comes to myself, I am already exposed to the Moroccan and French educational systems, but throughout my studies, I know that being exposed to various educational systems will further help me in my mission to make access to education in Morocco a more level playing field, or at least, to shed some light on the issue which I truly believe is Morocco’s biggest concern of the century, for it is those who will have a good education that will make Morocco a better place, in a world that I will always dare to imagine.

Expensive Teapot.