Teachers: Recruitment to remain regional
«This Government has put an end to contractualization», said Executive spokesman Mustapha Baitas on Thursday, January 25, 2024, at the close of the Government Council meeting. This is strange, given that the former Minister of National Education, Saad Amzazi (2018-2021), has constantly repeated that contractualization with teachers no longer exists since September 2018, when a status specific to «academy executive teachers» was introduced. This status was updated in March 2019.
In 2021, and following multiple rounds of negotiations with the unions, Amzazi proclaimed loud and clear that contract teachers were a thing of the past. Teachers recruited from 2016 onwards on contract were able to obtain the same salary and benefits as their colleagues, civil servants in the Education Nationale. As a result, they were transferred to the Moroccan Pension Fund (CMR), and were able to take all competitive examinations to become inspectors, guidance counsellors, school principals… « This is what was stated, but it wasn’t formalized. Today, we have a change in the law, in this case the law creating regional academies, which means that contractualization has come to an end «, says Mohamed Khoufaifi, Deputy General Secretary of the national education federation (UMT).
«Henceforth, all teachers are subject to the same administrative situation, and can claim the same promotions and career opportunities, and apply for the same competitive examinations, something that was not possible before», he added.
In Saaïd Amzazi’s time, there was only one point of difference, according to the Minister: regional recruitment. Teachers hired from 2016 onwards retained their status as employees of the Regional Academies of Education and Training (AREF), not the Ministry. They were therefore not eligible for national, but regional mobility, with a few exceptions. Yet, generally speaking, teachers are a highly mobile population. Amzazi spoke of 80,000 transfer requests per year, or one teacher in three. Almost 40% of requests were satisfied.
The decision to integrate contract teachers in 2016 was certainly ill-considered, not to say foolish. Nevertheless, it was a step towards the much-desired advanced regionalization and devolution through regional recruitment. And today, as in the past, this is the only difference that remains between the recruits integrated from 2016 onwards and the former civil servant teachers of the National Education ministry . « It is still the AREF academies who recruit «, confirms Khoufaifi. Even if not all their demands have been accepted, the teachers have all returned to their classrooms after almost three months on general strike. Will the adoption of the new status mark the end of the protest movements?
Ahlam NAZIH
