The professors’ protest constituted a prominent and significant event in the year 2023, as it was the largest and most influential on a vital and strategic sector of the education and training sector, as the professors’ coordination was able to paralyze the educational system and threaten the 2023/2024 academic season with a white year.

“Crisis” is like a snowball

The education sector crisis began as a snowball. It began with the protests of “contracting professors” and then included the sector as a whole. At a time when the Ministry of National Education, Primary Education and Sports was discussing amendments to the basic system for education sector employees with the five unions for about a full year, the “contract teachers” were launching successive strikes and protests, demanding “their integration into the public service,” and that the professors not be pursued in trials they described. With “imaginary”.

The “Coordination of Contracted Teachers” was setting a weekly program that included regional and regional marches, strikes, stops inside the squares, and “parades” in the capital, Rabat, in front of Parliament and the Ministry of National Education, considering “integration” the basic demand that sits at the top of the priorities of their demands file, thus causing “partial paralysis” in The educational system in the national education sector.

Spark of protest

Starting October 9, 2023, the protest momentum in the education sector will take a new turn, as the rounds of dialogue between the five most representative unions and the Ministry led to the January 14, 2023 agreement as a general framework that came after nearly 20 marathon meetings between the most representative unions and the Ministry of Education. Nationalism.

This agreement on the general principles of the Basic Law was transformed, during a legal decree ratified by the Government Council on September 27, and published in the Official Gazette on October 9, (turned) into a “time bomb” that sparked a torrent of communications and statements rejecting it from coordination committees and some unions, under the headings : “The system of tragedies,” “The system of punishments,” and “The encroachment on gains.”

The decree, which the government says was intended to “advance Moroccan schools,” led to the unification of factional coordination in the education sector with one word: “escalation and protest until the demands are met.”

The protest activities took place within the framework of the national coordination of the education sector, which included more than 23 factional coordination, in addition to the unified coordination of the teaching staff and support frameworks, as well as the coordination of the qualifying secondary school, to which were added the FNE unions that withdrew from the sectoral dialogue before the signing of the January 14 agreement, to return to it before the signing. The December 26 agreement, as well as the UNTM union, which accused the government of “excluding” it from the sectoral dialogue.

“Historic” protest

The decree on the basic system for education employees sparked the largest protest act that paralyzed the national education sector at all levels for three full months. In fact, it is still continuing, threatening the school season with a white year, which made the ministry, in the face of this exceptional momentum, acknowledge the words of one of its executives, and the matter concerns Muhammad Adhur. He is responsible for human resources at the ministry, who confirmed in one of his media outings that “the professors’ strike has achieved unprecedented records.”

In addition to regional and regional strikes and stops, as well as stops in schoolyards, these activities together organized the largest central protest demonstration in the capital, Rabat, on November 7, 2023, where thousands of teachers from all over the Kingdom made a pilgrimage, in order to express “absolute rejection of the contents of the January 14 agreement and demand the withdrawal of the regime.” basic, improving wages, and increasing the amount of compensation.”

“Rejected” agreements

In the face of this pressure, the government and the unions were forced to reopen the debate on the contents of the basic system for education employees and introduce amendments to it without withdrawing it. This debate ended with a new agreement, the December 10 agreement, which included a wage increase of 1,500 dirhams, and the treatment of some class files and other amendments that say: The government and the four unions said it was “a historic increase and fundamental reforms that are fair to men and women in education.”

But nothing has changed in the educational arena despite all that. The three coordination committees and some unions are still going on strikes and leading regional and regional protests against what they called “the government’s intransigence and the refusal to include it in the dialogue, as it is the party directly concerned with the crisis,” considering the unions that the government sits with “not representative.” In a real way, the will of men and women to educate.”
In the face of this situation, the government was forced to change its communication and dialogue strategy by involving the FNE union before introducing it directly to be part of the official representation in the sectoral dialogue, while including the coordination committees in some sessions to listen to their demands in the hope of drafting a new agreement instead of the agreement of January 14 and December 10, which was rejected by the leading activities. Protests in the square.
After continuous sessions and dialogues for two weeks, the ministerial committee and the five trade unions came out with a new agreement called the “December 26 Agreement,” which includes approving the same increase, expanding the scope of compensation, and resolving some factional files. However, it was again rejected by the coordination committees, which are still continuing their protest battle in an exceptional year for… The education sector, which seems to be a long one, and may lead to the end of the school season if an urgent and immediate solution is not found to relieve the congestion and return 7 million male and female students to the classroom.