Activities in Morocco

1. Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC; Governor: Kyosuke Shinozawa) signed an ODA loan agreement totaling up to 8.935 billion yen with the Kingdom of Morocco to finance the Rural Secondary Education Expansion Project.
2. The Kingdom of Morocco has placed education and human resource development high on its agenda of national economic and social development by adopting the National Education and Human Resource Development Charter and preparing the Economic and Social Development Plan for 2000-2004. This loan, which follows Morocco's national policy, will finance the construction of 101 junior high schools and the procurement of equipment for these schools in the rural areas of the five regions of Marrakech, Tensift and Al Haouz, Taza, Al Hoceima and Taounate, Doukkala and Abda, Tanger and Tétouan, and Souss, Massa and Draà.
3. The Government of Morocco has been making strenuous efforts to propagate and improve basic education. As a result, the national primary school enrollment ratio rose from 52.5% in 1990 (henceforth academic year) to 90% in 2001.[1] However, infrastructure development for secondary education such as school construction and educational equipment has failed to keep up with the sharp increase in the number of students graduating from primary schools, thereby constraining the national secondary school enrollment ratio to 63.1% in 2001. Particularly, a shortage of educational facilities in rural areas is a serious issue, where the secondary school enrollment ratio remains only 42.1%. The main factor behind the low enrollment ratio is an absence of junior high schools in neighborhoods. Another problem is a low enrollment ratio of female children living in remote rural areas. The enrollment ratio of female children in rural areas was 32.9%, compared with 78.9% in urban areas, in 2000. Therefore, one of the priorities of the educational sector in Morocco is to construct junior high schools within commuting distance of these students, so as to increase the secondary school enrollment ratio in rural areas.
4. Financial support for education and human resource development in this Project is expected to help reduce disparities in access to education between urban and rural areas and between male and female children, thereby serving to raise living standards in the rural areas of Morocco.

(See Appendix for details)

• [1] The academic year in Morocco starts in September and ends in June.