Morocco made significant progress in access to basic education, conference

In spite of last decades' high demography growth, Morocco scored significant progress in access to basic education, as the schooling rate of 6-11 children was estimated at 92% in 2002-2003 against 68,6% in 1997-1998.

This came in a report presented Friday by the Moroccan delegation to an African ministerial conference in Dakar, meant to make a decennial assessment of the action plan of the international Conference on population and development (CIPD), held in Cairo in 1994.

"Education improvement was more substantial in rural areas, particularly for girls, whose schooling rate went from 44,6% to 82,2% during the same period," said the report.

According to the delegation, considerable progress was also recorded at the level of health, mainly in slashing children mortality, which was cut from 57,3 deaths for each thousand births during the period 1988-1992 to nearly 37 per thousand during 1992-1997.