The Democratic Association of Moroccan Women (ADFM) organized a round table, as part of the citizen initiative for advocacy and awareness ” For a school of gender equality which she herself launched on the occasion of the International Day of Education. A memorandum was sent to the ministD of National Education, Preschool and Sports (MENPS), Chakib Benmoussa.
The round table thus brought together representatives of the main stakeholders in the education system, in particular feminist, human rights and development associations, education unions, organizations representing educational inspectors, teacher associations .es of various disciplines and federations of parents’ associations.
On this occasion, the ADFM presented its memorandum “ For the school of gender equality which takes note of the change announced by the government program (2021/2026), which was previously presented in December 2022 to Chakib Benmoussa, Minister of National Education, Preschool and Sports (MENPS) and parliamentarians from the Education, Culture and Communication Committee of the House of Representatives.
This memorandum, of which MoroccoLatestNews UK holds a copy, is based on the framework law on education and training, the outline of the roadmap announced by the ministry and the objectives of the national consultations launched in May 2022. It is also based on the call from of ” Education Transformation Summit » organized in September 2022 with the participation of our country on the question of « promoting gender equality and empowering girls and women in and through education“, as an opportunity to renew the expression of decades-old concerns.
Thus, the ADFM memorandum is structured around three components. First of all, there are elements of context that refer to several initiatives that the education system has experienced in the direction of equality in and through school, thus underlining a general trend that highlights a lack of institutionalization clearly defined equality in terms of concepts and pedagogy, in class content and in parallel content.
The trend also reveals the lack of continuity of efforts over time , can we read in the memorandum, since several opportunities have not been sufficiently exploited in the absence of a coherent and transversal vision, thus maintaining stereotypes and many discriminatory practices at school, it is pointed out.
Gender equality: A global and harmonious vision is essential
Through our analysis of the inventory of equality through schools, the ADFM highlights in its memorandum the effort to raise awareness of the principle of non-discrimination based on sex. But she notes, however, that the school does not use enough of its ” power and its channels of influence to effectively combat various sexist stereotypes and practices.
In this sense, the ADFM considers that it is “ possible, necessary, and urgent to rectify this situation, in particular through a triple rupture. First, the break with the contradictions characterizing the treatment of the principle of equality, from one discipline to another, from one teacher to another, from one educational administration to another. Then, the break with the inconsistency between educational discourse and actual practice within classes and in school spaces. And finally, the break with methods of education in the values of Human Rights, including gender equality, which favor the inculcation of book knowledge at the expense of critical awareness as a process of learning and appropriation. “.
Thus, the ADFM through its memo, expects from the Ministry of National Education, Preschool and Sports ” to adopt a global and harmonious vision, which takes into account the above-mentioned ruptures and which calls for the institutionalization of equality in and through the education system on the basis of a strategic vision and a results-based approach. Which include the concept of equality in its universal definition encompassing the curricula, the initial and continuing training of teachers, supervisors and administrative staff and all school activities and practices “.
At the same time, the Association considers in addressing the Ministry that a special effort is required at two levels. On the one hand, to neutralize the constraints of the ” political time “runs to promote the continuity of structuring measures that are long-term and on the other hand, to break with the management mode” administrative/bureaucratic » of the project in terms of positioning in the organization chart of the ministry and other determining factors, in particular the call for expertise and a substantial budget.
Ultimately, the ADFM undertakes to continue its action as a force for proposals and questioning while ” ensure the continuity of this dynamic and its expansion in order to make the pedagogy of equality an objective and an approach that contributes to establishing the education system as a real lever for promoting the culture of equality both at school than in society “.