Morocco Goes Back to School

MOROCCO CFG-10-158 ,4@EA AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 522 FIFIli AVENUE NEW WRK 36.N.Y MOROCCO GOES BACK TO SCHOOL The publication in these pages is one of a A Letter from Charles F. Gallagher continuing series from AMERICAN U NI- VERSITIES FIELD STAFF correspondents on current developments in world affairs. Rabat September 1958 This correspondence is distributed by 1.5, the AUFS as a contribution to the American fund of information on significant foreign events, trends, and personalities. The in- In these pleasantly warm days of formal letters, reflecting the current judg- mid-September, known here as ar rabil a1 ments of men on the scene, are of primary xkhar, the second spring, nearly 700,000 interest to the universities and colleges students, aged five to twenty-five, have which co-operatively sponsor the AUFS, a been getting ready to enter or return to nonprofit corporation. some form of educational institution in The letters are available by arrange- Morocco, from the kindergarten year of the ment to other educational institutions, state primary schools to the new Moroccan business and publishing firms, and public University at Rabat, with its gleaming affairs groups interested in the findings of white University City nestling between exceptionally qualified correspondents. The groves of pine and eucalyptus trees. writers have been chosen for their ability The figure is only some ten per to use scholarly as well as journalistic cent greater than last year's attendance, skills in collecting, reporting, and evalu- but the over-all total does not accurately ating data. Each has resided in his area of reflect the strain being put on educational assignment long enough to be thoroughly at facilities by the greatly increased number home in it, and has combined personal ob- of pupils, principally in the lower grades servation and experience with advanced of the primary schools. A better view of studies. the almost unbelievable progress in edu- The letters are copyrighted and must cation in this country can be had by noting not be reproduced or republished in whole that in 1953 there were 190,000 Moroccan or in part, or given secondary distribution, Muslims in educational establishments. except by arrangement with the A U F S. The number has tripled in five years. Faculty members of colleges and univer- Under these circumstances it is natural sities receiving the AUFS services are priv- that the problems of education--the budget- ileged to use the letters in classroom work, ary burdens, training of teachers, new and students of tliese institutions may draw school construction, language instruction-- on the material in tthem for academic papers have become a major preoccupation to a not planned for publication. government which realizes that the future Letters and reports issued by th e of this appallingly under-educated country AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES FIELD STAFF (there are about 1,800,000 Moroccans who are not selected to accord with an editorial are of school age and could be under policy and do not represent the views of its instruction) will be decided by the quality mem bersbip. Responsibility for accuracy of as well as the quantity of public facts and for opinions expressed in the instruction available in the next decade. letters and reports rests solely with the individual correspondents. PHILLIPSTALBOT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Copyright 1958 Anlerican Universities Field Staff, Inc. In the race for modern learning, CHARLES E GALLAGHER bas since uhich has become one of the background im- 1951 been o student of the affairs of peratives to most under-developed countries Northwest Africa. He starttd his in recent years, Morocco was left at the higher educatim at the University of post for almost the entire first half of the Wifotnia just after Patvl Harbor and twentieth century. It is difficult to know soon was shifted to the Japanese just how far back in history to go to assess language school at BMlldtt,Colo. He the blame, but both French governmental sowed intt the war as an officer in policy toward education of Moroccans during the Nay and tben became fine arts the protectorate and Moroccan society as a advisor an Japanese cm1tcp.d property whole must share responsibility, Certainly during the occ\rpatioa of Japan, In no apologies can be made for the deliberate 1949 he entered Harvard University soft-pedaling of education by French to major in Fat Eastern languages authorities from 1912 until the end of World and history* .He was graduated summa War 11; Moroccan nationalists are basically amlade in 1951. SuhequentIy be right when they complain about the nheavy was twice offered Harvatd-Yenehing heritage of the occupation." But no one can feUlowships to cdnue ia the Far deny that so-called education in pre-colonial Eastern field, but decided instead to Morocco, at the end of the nineteenth study Isfatsic society. Under Ful- century, was engulfed in a decadent stag- bright aad Fordfellowships,he worked nation which expressed itself in the rote for two years in Park and &ce years learning of theological dogma at a few in Notrh Africa After campleting his religious colleges in Fez, decorated with research la Rabat, he settled in the study of Arabic grammar and rhetoric and Tangier w write a history of Morocco the remnants of medieval versions of the few and a grammar of hfaghcebian Arabic. sciences, such as astronomy, which were He joined tho AUFS in jdy 1956 as essential to the practice of religion. a staff member d pattic3pted in These medersas of Fez in 1900 were consider- the 1356-57 piam of visits to mem- ably behind their own standards of 1300, and ber insrimdon@. In the summer of although French specialists of the beaux-arts 1957 ire retamed to Nor& Africa restored their crumbling architectural wader AUFS anspices. glories for the benefit of admiring tourists, no wave of internal reform came along to inject life into their souls. The msrds, for young children, were far from primary schools; in them often ill-equipped instructors, or the village fqzh, caused the ~ur'znto be read aloud and partly memoriz;ed, while sometimes teaching the rudiments of counting. This progressive sclerosis of its mental faculties had gone on for over three centuries in Morocco, apace with its retreat into hostile isolation and an internal political anarchy which ended with the collapse of the state and the setting-up of a foreign protectorate over the country in 1912. The relation between education and political control was not forgotten by the most alert elements among the protectors and the prot15gds. It was apparent to many protectorate authorities that a modern, liberal, French education would be the root of new evils, and they did their best to discourage it. As late as 1938, more than a quarter of a century after the arrival of the presence franqaise, the budget for the instruction of six million Moroccans was half that allotted to 300,000 Europeans. And, on the other side of the fence, the first manifestoes of the Istiqlal Party in the early forties decried the lack of education, the insignificant place given to the national culture in what education there was, and the attempt to gallicize the country through the use of French as the sole language of instruction. It was not until 1944 that the new currents stimulated by the war forced a change upon the system in Morocco. In that year the thirty hours of weekly schooling were divided, for the 33,000 pupils in the Muslim primary schools, into twenty hours of French and ten of Arabic. Even this concession was not fully carried out. In the rural areas, considered ltBerbern by adminis- trative fiat, French remained the only language used. Also in 1944 for the first time Muslims were allowed to enter the European schools (much supe~ior,and to which Moroccan Jews had long been admitted). Previously they had needed the assent of the political control authorities, who investigated the tenden- cies and thoughts of their families to see if their "attitude was correct." Although little can be said for this ttparsimonious and discriminatory system" as the Istiqlal called it, the faults were not entirely on the French side. There was no overwhelming rush of the Moroccan masses to school in those years, in part because the new system of the foreigners was kafir, impure in the religious sense, and likely to wean the child away from the righteousness of Islam. Also the inertia of past centuries had not yet given way to the new nationalist spirit. Very few native teachers were competent in Arabic, and between the lack of instructors and the scarcity of pupils, the vicious circle con- tinued with slight progress. Thus, after forty years, the protectorate had put only 190,000 Muslims into primary schools, and no more than 2,000 into secondary schools as far as the baccalaureate (approximately the equivalent of the first or second year of college). Figures revealing the educational void ir Morocco under the protectorate are shocking in their detr ,. In an unsigned aiticle in Politique ~tran~ere,1955, No. 4, it was reported that: "The total number of those moroccan ~uslims7 who passed the complete baccalaureate from che beginning of-the protectorate is 530, the examinations of October, 1954, included. h here were 625 Moroccan Jews and 7,353 French of Morocco.) Qualitatively the French represent 95% of the higher echelon personnel of the country as the following figures testify: 875 French doctors and 36 Moroccans (19 Muslims and 17 ~ews);180 French dentists and 5 Moroccans (2 Muslims and 3 Jews); 350 French lawyers and 48 Moroccans (27 Muslims and 21 Jews).

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