We have always understood that education is the basic element in any country’s development. It comes on the top of the list when it comes to the factors affecting the development and advancement of a given country. Education is the sector that should be given more interest in order to lead the government forward, The situation of Moroccan education is unsatisfactory. In spite of many reforms since 1956, there is no tangible change as had been expected by Moroccans. The failure of our educational reform is due to many variables that can either be linked to students, curriculum designers, teachers, policy makers or parents. Students’ performance is not always at its best. I witnessed many cases of students who keep bouncing from one exam to another until they graduate from University with theoretical knowledge that never translates into skills to match the needs of the labor market. Add to this that the results of the learners in standardized national/regional tests. Also, students’ achievement in universities shows that our learners are far away from improvement. Actually, the emergency plan and the LMD system (License, Master, and Doctorate) brought no fruitful result that had been expected by the whole nation; rather they brought a huge number of graduates. Sometimes, teachers can play a major role in the progress of education. They may either affect education positively or negatively. Unfortunately, some teachers still believe that their task is to fill the mind of students with information and ideas. That is not the objective of education, today. Students do not care much about what a teacher knows or has; rather, they are interested in how a teacher treats and teaches them. For an effective teaching, a teacher should open the venues of communication with his/her students to know their feelings, ideas and even their problems. The ideas and opinions of students should not be disdained and rejected. Students should be given the chance to choose the material they need and the way of learning they like. Students are different. The teachers should take into account that they have different profiles within classroom; that is why they have to design a syllabus that can respond to the different needs of students. The education system in Morocco is definitely hindering the cognitive and the psychological development of students. The way it works in Morocco is that teachers always ask students to spit back what they were given before. I do not think that this is how it should be done. Why not ask students how can they do something differently and may be reach different results. Students need to develop a sense of criticism to question themselves and the world around them. So, this is concerning the cognitive development of students. As far as the psychological development of students, we see that they are under-estimated and are not reinforced positively for the good work they perform. So if there is no reinforcement, this means students will not keep on working hard and being creative. What kills me about education in Morocco is that everything is impossible and there is an excessive use of ‘no’ and ‘you cannot do it’. Why would we prevent our children from trying? Why would we prevent our children from discovering and developing their self-autonomy? It is high time to free our children from our restrictions. Our educational system will always be unsatisfactory as long as both the students’ and teachers’ opinions and suggestions are rejected and neglected. Moroccan teachers and students should be given the chance to participate in the life of education. Decisions should be taken with respect to the needs of students. This means that students should participate in curriculum design and decision making. As a conclusion, for the educational system to succeed in Morocco, policy makers, teachers, parents and curriculum designers must sit together with students in order to know exactly what they need. Parents must teach their children how to respect their teachers and how to do their homework. Policy makers have to take the students’, parents’ and teachers’ opinions into consideration while taking decisions. Teachers must open the venues of communication with their students to know more about their ways of learning, feelings and even problems. Curriculum designers must take into consideration the socio-cultural and economic context of students while designing the curricula. Finally, information communication technologies must be expanded to reach all schools and universities.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:13:46 +0000
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