The Ministry of National Education, Preschool and Sports (MENPS) is getting a makeover. On December 27, 2022, the department headed by Chakib Benmoussa issued a call for tenders concerning the carrying out of a study on “the strategic alignment of the organization of the ministry”. The objective: to ensure that the major projects operated from the ministry find a concrete application and reach the classrooms.
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After having drawn up an inventory of the current functioning of the ministry and identified its dysfunctions, the chosen consulting firm will have to propose a comparative study of the different organizational models adopted in other countries which have them too carried out educational reform.
The service provider will then draw up a new organization chart, in accordance with the framework law n°51.17 voted in July 2019. To carry out its work, it will have an envelope of 3 million dirhams.
Roadmap
This internal restructuring is part of the 2022-2026 roadmap relating to the reform of public schools that the minister presented last November, and which intends to carry out an almost total overhaul of the Moroccan education system. When he chaired the commission in charge of drawing up the New Development Model, Chakib Benmoussa was already advocating a comprehensive education reform.
“The organization chart of the ministry has not changed for 20 years. This reorganization is one of the levers to move towards the concretization of the education reform”, explains Aïcha Akalay, member of Chakib Benmoussa’s cabinet.
Lack of coordination between actors at central, regional and local levels, low accountability of actors for results, lack of monitoring of implementation in the field and irregular measurement of impacts… In its roadmap, the MENPS already mentioned certain difficulties with which the members of the educational body are regularly confronted.
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“The overhaul of the organization chart must allow the operational translation of the strategic objectives. It is a field-oriented measure,” explains Aïcha Akalay.
For reply To meet these various challenges, the Ministry also intends to set up quality control bodies, intended for students and also for teaching staff. The internal reform also provides for several changes in human resources, without however specifying the exact modalities.
After the central organization chart, another study should be devoted this time to the level of regional education and training academies (AREF).
Tensions
Will this reorganization eventually ease relations between Chakib Benmoussa and the teachers’ unions? Since his arrival at the head of the ministry, the former Moroccan ambassador to France has had to juggle between the application of his roadmap and the management of the various controversies linked to the structural crisis of the Moroccan education system. A situation he inherited when he took office in October 2021.
While the issue of contract teachers was about to be resolved after the signing, on January 18, 2022, of an agreement with the five main education unions, the year 2023 nonetheless began with a general teachers’ strike on 2 January in Rabat. Some of them believe that the commitments made a year ago have not been respected. As for the change in internal structure, it will not be effective before many month.
In Morocco, Chakib Benmoussa reorganizes his ministry to better reform education – Jeune Afrique