Morocco elected vice-president of a UNESCO institution

Morocco has been elected earlier this week vice-president of the international education bureau, a Geneva-based UNESCO institution, in the person of university rector Aziz Hasbi.

Morocco will thus be part of the 28-member managing board of the council whose main task lies in adapting the educational syllabi to the challenges of the 21st century.

Hasbi told MAP bureau in Geneva after the closing meeting of the bureau's 46th session Friday that this election is timely as Morocco is currently reforming its educational system and is about to adopt a national education and training charter.

The draft charter will be tabled before an extraordinary session of the Moroccan parliament in February and will come into force as of the next academic year.

The International education bureau, set up in 1925 as a private institution, became in 1929, the first intergovernmental organization dealing with education. It was integrated in UNESCO in 1969, but still enjoys a large intellectual and financial autonomy.