The educational system is systematically linked to economic production. Just as learning is considered a determinant factor in economic development through the relationship between the training system and the production system, educational expenses are not just a consumption of financial resources, but they increase the capacity for production. This is true both at the level of society in general, due to the role of education in the economic development of communities through increasing growth rates and economic development, and at the level of economic institutions, where production is linked to the efficiency that requires a qualified workforce. The transition from traditional to industrial and advanced technological economies, for example, requires a more qualified workforce, and an educational system that suits this development. This benefits individuals by raising their productivity and thus achieving better returns for them, their employing institution, and the society as a whole.
The role of the school in educating on the values of citizenship and human rights from a political perspective
For decades after independence, the school has been a focal point of tension due to the political tensions at the time and the betting of some currents on the school as a tool for the political upbringing of young people in line with their ideological references. The political turmoil that the educational policy was suffering from at that time was exploited as an excuse to attack the sanctity of the school and make it fuel for the political conflict in society.
All the reforms that were initiated were either improvised, failed, or responded to an urgent political circumstance. The common factor among these reforms is the absence of a clear educational project, due to the vagueness of the societal project and the lack of clarity of vision, on the one hand, and the political elite's abandonment of their real roles, on the other hand. The accumulation of failures of hastily prepared plans or plans based on the whims of their owners or recommendations from international organizations is what is reflected concretely in the continuous decline in learning and the significant regression in the level of basic school competencies.
The glaring paradox here is the imbalance between the relatively high cost of investing in education and the meager overall return, as well as the school becoming contrary to its mission, especially when it stopped playing the role of social elevator and turned from a tool of integration to a means of exclusion, accompanied by a decline in confidence in the Moroccan public school, shaking its image and the image of the teacher, and the devaluation of knowledge in society in general. These factors were sufficient for the beginning of the divorce between the school and its values, and we found ourselves facing a phenomenon of fragility of the school's values and its susceptibility to disintegration.
This situation continued until 2000 when Morocco's entry into the third millennium was marked by a historic achievement, represented by the adoption of a charter for the education sector called the "National Charter for Education and Training", which was the result of a national consensus among various actors across different levels. While the democratic methodology required the views of the majority that were produced by the ballot boxes provided that they take responsibility for what they plan and implement in terms of public policies.
As an institution for educational development, the educational work within a school cannot function properly unless its discourse is a coherent and integrated structure, such that there exists a semi-organic relationship between its components. This means that any change in one of its components is reflected in the overall structure as a whole. Therefore, when educational decision-makers accept adopting compatibility in educational curricula, they are relinquishing the intellectual and scientific effort necessary to formulate a comprehensive educational philosophy that revolves around a cohesive thread between all values that preserves their harmony.
Educational compatibility that is satisfied with adopting diverse value fields and placing them side by side with each other (cognitive, religious, worldly, national, rights-based, environmental, cosmic values, etc.) has provided an opportunity for educational program developers, textbook authors, and teachers to approach these fields and address them according to their personal and ideological interpretations and beliefs, rather than according to the criterion of taking the organic unity of values that should be based on harmony, interdependence, integration, and intersectionality.
The bet on the school in education on values stems from the conviction that the success of the Moroccan school lies at the heart of the challenges that Morocco must overcome. However, this conviction has not yet turned into a firm and widely shared commitment, as evidenced by the timid mobilization around the Moroccan school, despite the high stakes at hand. The Moroccan school aspires to be an institution of high productivity, justice, equity, and to acquire the virtues of civil behavior, citizenship values, and the rules of democratic practice. In the context of the socio-political transformations that Moroccan society is witnessing today, it is called upon to double its efforts to achieve the necessary balance between fulfilling its role in raising individuals on shared values among the components of the nation, and educating them on these values, and its usual tasks of teaching methodological and cognitive competencies and preparing them for professional life.
This requires a creative combination of knowledge transfer, targeted training to build critical thinking skills, and education on values and targeted training to assess those values.