Education professionals protested against the new “fundamental system” for workers in the national education sector with a large-scale protest on Tuesday, which drew more participants than registrations.
The enormous protest march, with the slogan “For dignity and social justice for educational workers,” got underway in front of the Parliament building in Rabat.
Teachers keep pressing on rejecting the fundamental system, demanding “a fair and comprehensive basic system that meets the demands of all educational groups,” despite the fact that the head of government received the four educational unions that took part in its issuance a few days ago and made a promise to improve it in an effort to ease the tension that has been witnessed in the educational arena for weeks.
Along with the significant presence of “contracted professors,” other coordination groups joined the “National Coordination for the Education Sector,” calling for the protest and increasing the number of coordination units to 22. This broadened the scope of the protest against the statute for employees of the national education sector.
Approximately 30,000 individuals were thought to have participated in the march, which packed Mohammed V Street and surrounding avenues heading toward the Ministry’s buildings, according to a security source.
The protesting professors confirmed that they would continue striking, despite the government’s deduction of their wages for the days of the strike, as they chanted the slogan, “Cut, cut, and add more cuts… By God, we will not kneel.”
They also directed severe criticism at the Minister of National Education, Primary Education and Sports, Chakib Benmoussa, and at the head of Government, Aziz Akhannouche, as they chanted: “He did nothing… Benmoussa should leave.”
In addition to today’s protest in Rabat, teachers are on strike for three days, in a move aimed at pressuring the Ministry of Education to drop the fundamental as a main demand, which they consider to be a “legitimate right.”
The same coordination also calls for “fulfilling all the demands of women and men in education, retired and practicing,” and “guaranteeing the right to strike and stopping deductions from the wages of male and female strikers.”
The protest took place amid tight security measures, as Mohammed V Street near the city station was completely closed to prevent the protesters from heading through it to the headquarters of the Ministry of education.
Abderrazak El Idrissi, Deputy Secretary General of the National University of Education (FNE), considered that the large number of professors participating in today’s organized protest “confirms the rejection of the situation in which the sector is currently found by women and men in education, and also confirms the necessity of reforming it.”
Commenting on the promise made by the head of government to the four educational unions to “improve” the fundamental system , El Idrissi told MoroccoLatestNews AR “We are waiting for the results, but as for the promises, we are tired of them. We can speak when there are actual results.”
In response to a question about whether the period that has passed since the head of government’s meeting with the four unions was sufficient to implement his promise, the unionist said: “If political administration is available, one day is enough to draw up a basic system that responds to the aspirations of women and men in education, because the demands are clear, and they are general demands. The government also knows all the problems of the sector, and it is sufficient to bring together the sectors with the government concerned with them to solve them, but so far we do not see a real will to solve these problems, until proven otherwise.”
El Idrissi also pointed out that the education sector “is witnessing the emergence of new problems, as a result of not solving the accumulated problems,” concluding: “It is not reasonable for these problems to continue to accumulate without being solved, because this will increase the discontent of the educational workers.”