Public school, school for the poor, backed by figures!
What if the setbacks of the Moroccan public school were first linked to the fact that it was practically emptied of representatives of the middle and wealthy classes? What if they were related to the fact that the Moroccan public school has been transformed into a forced refuge for children from poor backgrounds, and hardly benefiting from favorable conditions for learning?
Or quite simply, are the setbacks of the Moroccan public schools due to the fact that public schools have become a direct reflection of our social inequalities? All of this, knowing that there is a close link between academic performance and social belonging.
The results of the international PIRLS survey evaluating the performance of 4th year primary school pupils, unveiled on May 16, came like a bombshell. Again, Moroccan schoolchildren are second to last, with a score of 372, well below the survey average of 500 points.
The survey, carried out every five years, covering 57 countries for this edition, assesses “social attendance” in schools. According to the results collected, Moroccan schools are clearly the ones with the lowest degree of social diversity. Barely 7% of children attend schools with social balance, while the international average involves almost one third of children. This 7% percentage is the lowest share of the sample of the 57 countries covered.
On the other hand, 86% of children are educated in schools where the underprivileged classes of society dominate (versus 25% internationally). Again, this is the record within the sample. The survey affects both the public and the private sector.
Schoolchildren enrolled in schools with a majority of wealthy classes (7%) are those who obtain the best scores. They score 89 points more than their peers educated in predominantly disadvantaged schools.
According to PIRLS 2021, only 3% of Moroccan schoolchildren have a high socioeconomic status. This is the weakest share of the sample. This share comes close to that of countries such as Jordan and Egypt (4%), or even South Africa (5%), whereas this proportion ranges from 50% to 57% in economies such as Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and these are precisely the countries with the best international scores. Clearly, the higher the socioeconomic status, the higher the performance of students.
Morocco has the highest percentage of disadvantaged children in its schools, namely 76%. If this testifies to one thing, it is the degree of the inequalities suffered. Morocco is followed by Brazil and South Africa (64 and 61%). In countries like Denmark, Finland, Singapore, or Norway, the percentage does not exceed 5 to 6%. Poor students have access to very few bibliographical and digital resources to study, and cannot afford paid support courses. This affects their school performance. Supervised by teachers who are often poorly qualified to practice their profession, students are, for most of them, doomed to failure.
Ahlam NAZIH
