A Women’s Education Revolution in Morocco

In 2007, the Moroccan government began implementing a national literary program targeting rural girls and women. The program’s beneficiaries, which number nearly 20,000, each receive a total of 300 hours of lessons in basic reading, writing, and math skills. They also learn about civil rights, the environment, development, social studies, and acquire technical skills such as weaving, baking, and beekeeping.

One of the program’s main objectives is development, both in a social and economic sense. The program also includes post-literacy training, which will train women how to use their new-found skills to run micro-projects. Hopefully, the program can help lift women out of illiteracy and poverty.

El Habib Nadir, director of the literacy department in the ministry of education, said, “The trend has been to shift from standard literacy, in which programs were limited to teaching students the basics of reading, writing, and computing, to a literacy of social integration of beneficiaries in their environment. The target is one million beneficiaries per year and to reduce Morocco’s illiteracy rate to 20% by 2016.”

The program’s grants cover course fees, teacher-training, and learning tools like pens and books.

For more information on the program, please click here.

Creative Commons Love: trevorappleton on Flickr.com

Written by Ling Shu