Schooling in Morocco will be generalized by 2002
Morocco, Education, 6/21/2000

Schooling in Morocco will be generalized by the 2001-2002 academic year and schooling age will be lowered to 6 years.

The announcement was made by Moroccan Prime Minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, on Tuesday while he was presenting to the House of Representatives (lower Chamber of the Parliament) the 2000-2004 draft economic and social development plan.

The Prime Minister insisted on the importance of education and said the education and training play a key role in promoting human resources that are, he said, the major engine for any development process.

He said the draft plan provides for incentives to informal education that will benefit about 1 million children aged between 8 and 16 and seeks to reduce illiteracy rate from the current 46% to 35 % by 2004.

The Prime Minister said the plan provides for the construction of 10,170 classrooms for primary education and 230 high schools.

Chairman of the national education and training commission, Abdelaziz Meziane Belfkih, had recently said that the education strategy seeks to bring up the number of children attending schools from the current 5.4 million to 8 millions by 2010.

Youssoufi who dwelt in his presentation on the social aspects of the draft plan also spoke of projected measures to improve medicare and extend health coverage especially in rural areas, and to struggle against unhealthy housing.

He announced in this regard that the Hassan II fund for economic and social development will finance the construction of 11,500 lodgings worth $ 110 Million and expounded the housing projects planned by the housing department.

He added that the draft plan equally provides for the promotion of decentralization and devolution and for narrowing development gaps existing between regions. The poor regions will be endowed with the necessary economic and social infrastructures to make of them investment attracting centers, he said.

The government, Youssoufi added, is projecting to draft a specific development plan for each of the 16 economic regions in the kingdom and that these regional plans will be submitted to the higher national promotion council for adoption.

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