Despite the opening of a sectoral dialogue with the most representative unions in the education sector, the Ministry of National Education is struggling to find concrete solutions to the problems of workers in the sector. Of the 40 outstanding files, only 4 or 5 have been resolved or are in the process of being resolved.
As the celebration of Labor Day on May 1 approaches, voices have been raised to deplore the absence of a real will on the part of the government to respond to the demands of the trade union movements.
Abderrazak El Idrissi, Secretary General of the National Federation of Education (FNE), tells us that the dialogue is still ongoing with the supervisory authority and that a meeting took place on Wednesday April 20 on the subject of the files in suspense, more than forty.
” There has been an accumulation of issues that have not been resolved with successive ministers and governments in recent years. Some date from 2011, in particular those concerning certified teachers, compensation for teachers who work in difficult or remote areas, the case of primary and middle school teachers and substitute teachers who are not entitled to their scale, or even the file of the new scale. For the latter, it is an associate teacher recruited on scale 11. By reaching the off-scale after 7 or 8 years of work, the teacher remains blocked without any promotion horizon.“, El Idrissi tells us again.
On April 26, 2011, we recall, an agreement was reached between the unions and the government of the time to set up a new scale. A point which is being processed within the framework of the new statute of 2022, being developed with the ministry and which will make it possible to resolve several files, specifies our interlocutor.
” The dialogue is still ongoing with the supervisory authority, but the big problem that we often expose as FNE is that of so-called contractual teachers. Unfortunately, we were told at one time that these teachers will be integrated into the status of national education officials. But in his last statement, Minister Chakib Benmoussa stressed that there is no difference between contractual teachers and those of the ministry, while there is a big difference whether in terms of stability or even the situation“, he underlines.
According to Abdelrazzak El Idrissi, “The field of education precisely requires a certain stability. A teacher who is not stable in his work, cannot give the best of himself to the students since he lives in daily stress“.
Asked about the teachers who take advantage of this stability to be absent without being sanctioned, the SG of the FNE believes that there are alternative solutions for these cases, such as the control and monitoring of these teachers by management. , but also by inspectors.
That said, El Idrissi notes that the education sector is precisely experiencing a huge shortage of labor inspectors, noting that the supervision rate is too low. ” You can find a single Arabic inspector in a whole province. He must control the colleges and high schools, which is hellish“, he argues.
Total indifference to strikes
In recent years, strikes in the education sector have increased due to the non-resolution of several workers’ files. According to El Idrissi, the ministry, the government and the state have backtracked and “believe that we must calm things down“. However, he regrets total indifference with regard to strikes becausehe saidwe can go on strike as long as we want, it has no impact on the government and the state“.
To return to the sectoral dialogue which is still in progress, the SG of the FNE tells us that there are files which have been resolved, but which are inherited from the former governments, and have been dealt with ever since. Today, they have been finalized or almost.
He cites as an example the file of educational administrators (directors, general supervisors, heads of centers of preparatory classes, etc.) which has been largely resolved, despite a few points which remain to be dealt with.
Then there is the file of educational planning counselors and guidance counselors whose file has been partially resolved, but there are still problems to be resolved. There is also the file of teachers who work outside the cycle. For example, a primary or middle school teacher who teaches in the qualifying.
And finally, the file of graduates who have the Master. The latter need a change of framework in addition to a promotion at scale 11 (It is being resolved, a decree has been drawn up), he confides to us.
On the eve of May 1, the SG of the FNE has several hopes. The first obviously concerns education in our country which, according to him, must be the top priority for everyone, without exception, namely the state, the government, the ministry, the unions, the sectors concerned, the parents of students, the press, etc.
” For our country to move forward, we must all tell ourselves that we must take care of education and improve it. Without teaching, we will arrive at the end of the strategic vision of 2030, or even the end of 2035 (NMD), or 2040 (the famous WB paper), by repeating the same diagnosis. We still suffer from illiteracy, school dropouts, shortages in teaching and management, whether from a qualitative or quantitative point of view, etc. highlights the trade unionist.
To conclude: “We will therefore remain in a vicious circle, while countries which have started reforms just after us have succeeded, at a time when Morocco is still at a standstill. Our global ranking is among the lowest. Moreover, there are countries which experience colonization and war, but which are ahead of us in this area.“.
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