Morocco increases children's schooling

The number of children attending schools in Morocco increased by 20% in 1998-99 over 1997-98, the Moroccan education minister said on Thursday.

Smail Alaoui said in a report before the weekly government council meeting that the rate reached 40% among girls.

The schooling rate increased by 6.5% for the basic education cycle, with 10.7% in the rural world.

Prime Minister Abderrahmane Youssoufi called for more efforts to reach the target of reducing to the minimum the number of children out of school.

Some 4.7 million pupils headed last October to basic and secondary education schools throughout Morocco. However, some 2 to 2.5 million children were not schooled this year.

The bringing down of the schooling age to 6 from 7 is one of the innovations introduced this year in a bid to generalize education at the dawn of the 21st century.

Smail Alaoui had previously called for increasing the share of education in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 4.5% to 6% in order to ensure the promotion of the sector.