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he mountains of the High Atlas east of Ouarzazate
are breathtakingly beautiful--cool and relaxing in
summer, rugged and isolated in winter. In the
warm months, fruits and nuts are plentiful; shepherds
traverse the hills with sheep and goats. These provide
villagers with cash crops for sale in distant urban
markets. Where water is available, villagers
cultivate small plots of grain, some few vegetables,
and crops for animal fodder. In a good year, there
may be a surplus for sale in local markets.
In winter, snow-covered mountains, narrow unpaved
roads, over-flowing rivers, and periodic landslides
block access for weeks at a time. Small, isolated
villages are cut off from one another and from the
surrounding area, relying on the rewards of a summer
harvest to survive the harsh winter. Electricity,
water, and sanitation facilities are absent.
For the
vast majority of people in the High Atlas, education
is a luxury they can ill afford. In
many villages virtually all adults, both men and women,
are illiterate; and there is a total absence of programs
for adult literacy. In one village the local
school had to be constructed alongside the village
cemetery, reflecting the utter lack of social acceptance
of education in or within proximity to the village. Further,
teachers are outsiders, speaking and teaching in Arabic
rather than the local Berber dialect.
Where schools have been introduced, attendance is
limited and largely restricted to boys. In some
areas women and girls are not even allowed to pass
by the school, symptomatic of the longstanding culture
and traditions working against the education of girls
and preventing the full integration of women in society. There
are an estimated 2.5 million girls of primary school
age in Morocco; and more than half of them live in
the countryside, where again, less than half of girls
attend school, and when they do, the drop-out rate
between grades one and six, is a shocking 80 percent.
Families feel little incentive to educate girls who
are generally married by the age of 14 and are helpful
with household chores like gathering water and firewood
as well as child-rearing. Consequently, there
is strong social pressure for girls not to attend school,
and when they do, they often encounter a hostile environment
and leave in discouragement. When NEF first began
the project, some communities even refused to participate. They
simply could not understand that education was important. Young
men completing primary school were unable to go on
to the secondary level since it all too often meant
a costly commitment to boarding and education in a
distant town.
Besides, local schools with their classes through
sixth grade were all too often simply uninviting bare
shells with little warmth and nothing to encourage
a child’s attendance. Many consisted of
a single or perhaps two classrooms. They lacked
space, had leaky roofs, broken windows, missing doors,
insufficient and often broken furniture, no heating
so were absolutely freezing in winter, and typically
had inadequate or often absent water and sanitation
facilities. School books and supplies were extremely
limited and beyond the means of the majority of families.
Students, age six and up, had to walk many miles through
rugged country in the cold of winter to attend class.
Those beyond sixth grade have to travel 50 miles or
more across the mountains to reach the nearest school
at that level. Here they had to board with relatives
or in unfamiliar hostels, and at a cost they could
ill afford. Clearly such conditions discouraged
school enrollment and encouraged frequent absenteeism.
According to Abdelkhalk Andam, NEF’s Moroccan
project director: “It’s hard for
people to realize just how much has to be done. For
instance, it’s not just about registering girls
for school, but about keeping them there. This
means that we have to deal not only with how these
communities perceive education, but also how they look
at the role of women at home and in the broader community,
and also the role of young girls in the household economy. It’s
about long-standing traditions and cultural issues,” he
continued, adding, “Many people would prefer
to see it more simplistically, but that’s just
not possible.”
Near East Foundation is working in the High Atlas
Mountains in partnership with the US State Department’s
Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and the Moroccan
Department of Education, to bring learning to the High
Atlas, promote the education of girls, provide continuing
education, and encourage the involvement of local parents
and teachers in activities that promote education and
further development in local communities.
The initiative was launched early in the year with
much fanfare at the area Chamber of Commerce, including
attendance by the General Director of the Moroccan
Ministry of Education. Even the inauguration
of the program was a learning experience—a workshop
where all paricipants, including village representatives,
exchanged ideas and NEF’s project manager outlined
plans for the year.
While initially difficult to gain community acceptance,
the project has in nine months of intense activity
produced a virtual revolution in the perception of
education among villagers in the eight participating
communities. Villages that had refused to participate
in the project are fast becoming models of educational
reform. Virtually empty classrooms are now full. Those
who enroll tend to remain for the term. Over
300 adults, an extraordinary more than 60 percent of
them women, are enrolled in adult literacy classes--and
their numbers are increasing.
Newly-formed Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), joined
by women leaders from the villages, are collaborating
with NEF to encourage education for all and to mobilize
the resources needed to improve schools and allow local
graduates to continue their education in secondary
schools located in nearby towns and cities. Some
PTAs are nearly autonomous and have proven their ability
to organize and manage their affairs; some others will
need additional support before reaching that plateau.
NEF’s Project Director Andam reported with evident
satisfaction: “A majority of both PTA members
and local teaching staff and administrators are now
much more aware of the role of the PTA in relation
to the school, as well as their role in relation to
the PTA. There is also much greater support and
participation by local religious leaders, the Imams-fkihs.”
While PTAs had been tried in some communities, they
had met with little success in isolated areas such
as the High Atlas. People simply did not understand
what they were for, and if they did, they needed
a great deal of help to make them function. So
this became NEF’s starting point to encourage
education—make the PTAs work for the community,
and in turn, help the community understand how to
work for the PTA. And to do this, help the
teachers and administrators assigned to the schools
understand how they could help and how the school
would benefit from their greater involvement.
This often meant breaking down barriers between insiders
and outsiders since administrators and teachers are
assigned for short terms to the rural areas, generally
a few years at most. All the more reason for
parents to take more responsibility for assuring that
children attend school and that the education they
receive is what they need. That challenge was
further complicated by the gender issue. When
NEF began its work there were almost no girls enrolled
in village schools and the idea of having women participate
on the boards of local PTAs absolutely unheard of,
given that some communities even prohibited women
and girls from venturing near schoolyards.
Confronting gender head on and as a condition for
participation, the project began by identifying and
organizing women leaders from each village. Their
role was to support the PTA in its efforts to encourage
education and discourage dropouts. These women
received training and were encouraged to participate
in PTA activities and board meetings; and PTA boards
were prompted to seek their advice and assistance. The
strategy worked and gradually they became ad hoc members
of the PTA boards.
In addition, adult literacy classes were established
in most communities and the majority of attendees were
women. In class women were able to discuss their
problems, needs, and aspirations. They were now
outside of their homes, in school, and involved in
the larger community--participating in educational
awareness campaigns, making home visits to investigate
school absences and dropouts, and encouraging parents
to send their children to school. Not only moving
about more freely in their own communities, they also
traveled beyond and met with other women in other villages. For
most, it was for the first time. For some, it
was their first time in an automobile.
For their part, school administrators and teachers
helped plan and participated in project activities,
assisting new PTA board members in fulfilling their
unfamiliar responsibilities, and in organizing and
follow-up of project events. Many served as instructors
for adult literacy classes with NEF providing vital
training and support for their new role. Clearly
evident, the educators came to better understand the
problems rural people face; the role they can play
in addressing these issues; and the critical importance
of the teacher in encouraging and maintaining an interest
in education by children and adults alike.
To support all this, NEF encouraged the emerging PTAs
to take an interest in improving school facilities. Working
together, NEF, local communities, and local schools
are transforming rundown facilities into adequate school
rooms and providing pupils with basic school supplies
and teachers with teaching materials. Over the
coming two years, NEF hopes to continue to support
the eight participating schools and to expand the project
to include a total of 15 villages in the surrounding
area together with their satellite school.
This is only the beginning. Education is the core
of development, but sustainable only through promotion
and support for local economies. People expect education
to produce results, for both men and women, improving
their everyday quality of life. So NEF is working
with government authorities and community residents
on the development of complimentary activities that
help identify and benefit from previously underutilized
or neglected local resources.
These include expansion and diversification of crops,
introduction of quality seeds and plant materials,
rebuilding and improving herds devastated by recent
droughts, quality control and marketing of rural crafts,
improving processing and packaging of goods, developing
local markets and transport facilities. Much
of this depends on putting in place simple, cost-efficient
forms of water harvesting, reforestation, alternative
sources of fuel, and greater fuel efficiency. Required
too is increasing community participation and encouragement
of individual entrepreneurs of all ages, male and female. Developing
local economies provides incentives for continuing
education and feeds the process of continuing and sustainable
development for all.
There is indeed a revolution brewing in the High Atlas,
one that is fueling development and making it possible
for local people to build the future they envision
for themselves—the Near East Foundation
mission. “I have to say that the work being done
in the High Atlas by the NEF team is some of the best
that I have seen in my career. They really are
promoting a revolution in education and laying the
base for economic recovery…I truly believe that,” emphatically
commented NEF Regional Director Roger Hardister.
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