Berber language teaching to start in 2003-2004 school year

Moroccan education and youth minister, Habib El Malki, announced on Wednesday that teaching the Berber language will start in the coming 2003-2004 school year.

The official told the question-time at the house of representatives, integrating Berber language learning in Moroccan schools will be effected as part of a gradual scheme jointly-developed by the education ministry and the Royal Institute of the Amazigh Culture (IRCAM), set up in October 2001.

The decision, he went on, was made in 2001 in conformity with the sovereign's directives contained in two speeches he delivered in July and October 2001.

In parallel to teaching the three dialects of Berber (Tachlhit, Tamazight and Tarifit), Berber teachers' instructors will be trained and starting from the coming school year, manuals will be distributed for free in the first year of primary education.

In a previous statement, the minister had said that a total of 1,000 Berber teachers will be appointed this year with plans to generalize the subject nationwide by 2010.

Teaching Berber, one of the components of the Moroccan identity, is part of the provisions of the national charter of education and training.