Morocco celebrated on Monday, October 13th the national literacy day.
In spite of Morocco's attempts to eradicate illiteracy, this cancer is still clinching on. Only half of all Moroccans are educated, in today's world this number is by far one of the worst.

Let's face it if we do not completely eliminate illiteracy then forget about our 2025 plan to join the world of the elites. illiteracy in Morocco declined by approximately 1% each year for the last 14 years, an encouraging sign which means that the government is doing its utmost effort to lower the number of Moroccans unable to read and write, however there are countries achieving 5,6 and even 10% per year, they completely wiped out their illiteracy within a decade or two.

It is scary to realize that it will take us another 50 years to get there. Probably the best solution is to import a ready to use kit program, we should put pride aside and shop for the best model that matches our criteria, China comes to mind when we ponder a solution of this type.

Some leaders of the left were contemplating importing the Chinese model to Morocco 50 years ago to their credit  no one let them at that time. Morocco was not lucky enough to have a national movement fighting illiteracy.
Consider:
Literacy in Morocco: total population: 52.3%
Male: 65.7%
Female: 39.6%
This gender divide is due to very deep rooted customs in the Moroccan society. The girls stayed at home while the boys went to school, sometimes only the first born went to school while the rest of the children did not; girls had to wait for a husband the boys had to learn a trade, help out at in agriculture or travel abroad. Another fact that aggravated our shameful high rate of illiteracy was the occupation, nationalism and over pride in some families got in the way of letting their children go to "French schools" they instead sent them to "Jamaa" Quranic schools. Where they learned Islamic teaching as did all Moroccans for centuries, nothing was changed even the "Luh" did not change. I have mixed-feelings about the Quranic schools; it is true that it did not teach the poor Moroccans enough skills to secure high ranking positions in the aftermath of the independence, which kept a lid on them forever. But the Jamaa also helped them understand their
faith deeply and that is why we were exempt of fanatics for decades. Jamaa teaching was a direct reason for our normal religious identity (normal compared to some parts of the world where things are confused between religion, politics and cultism) unfortunately with the decline of the Jamaa's role we experience currently confusion in religious identity in the minds of the poor uneducated "or poorly educated" Moroccans.

Illiteracy not only puts a cover on a sleeping population, it also deprives the country from direct foreign investment. In order to qualify to be considered for an outsourcing plant or a manufacturing outlet a country must have a least 65% total literacy and a minor gender divide. India is doing as well as it is right now not because of its strategic and convenient location, I am sure that an American investor would rather take a 5 hour trip to Morocco to see his suppliers than the 16 hours to India. But India offers millions of educated work force ready to produce.
With these numbers we are pushed to serve the western world with leisure industries, since we can not offer much in terms of qualified population we are assigned to look after them on their vacations rather than to be a real partner with industries and services that enrich the country and not exploit it. A hotel, no matter how fascinating it might be, will not be as beneficial to Morocco as a HP call center, microprocessors plant or even a Bank.
Illiteracy also contributed to incompetence in the Moroccan work place, many Moroccans have powerful, influential and important jobs with very little qualifications, and many unfortunately are making grave mistakes that affect our future because they are incompetent and no one cares enough to notice our drawback. Have you ever been confronted with an unbelievable mediocrity while conducting your business in Morocco? I am sure most of us have. Since half of the population can't read nor write everything is possible including police officers who can not write or teachers teaching levels they never studied, we had teachers in High Schools with “Breve” how can Morocco advance with such mediocrity? Money? Not enough! Not what is needed, we must accelerate the war on illiteracy and to change the poor education level our public schools are shamefully known for.
A literate Moroccan "man or woman" will be hard headed perhaps, may cause some political awareness (bad for politicians), he / she will know his/ her rights of course but will also be 10 times more productive proud and would know better not to blowup to please someone in Tora Bora.
The malpractice is a term usually used for doctors or hospitals making grave mistakes that cause life-long handicap or death, I compared it with our dire education system which is also responsible for our society's life-long illiteracy.
For the sake of Comparison and without any comments consider the statistics of literacy in some key countries:
Morocco
total population: 52.3%
male: 65.7%
female: 39.6%
Emarates
total population: 77.9%
male: 76.1%
female: 81.7%
Algeria
total population: 69.9%
male: 79.6%
female: 60.1%
Zimbabwe
total population: 90.7%
male: 94.2%
female: 87.2%
Mauritania
total population: 51.2%
male: 59.5%
female: 43.4% ( a Mauritanian woman has more chances to be literate than its Moroccan counterpart)
USA
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99%
France
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99%
Egypt
total population: 71.4%
male: 83%
female: 59.4%

Zak Ettamymy

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