A teachers’ march in Rabat to protest the new basic system of education (social networking sites)

Rabat -

After 3 months of strike and protest, Moroccan teacher Abu Bakr Esho was informed of the decision to suspend him from work and refer him to the disciplinary council on the grounds of unjustified absence from work, in one of hundreds of incidents that reveal the depth of the crisis in the educational sector in Morocco.

Isho works at Moulay Abdullah High School in the city of Sidi Ifni as an Arabic language teacher, and he responded to the call of the National Coordination for Education to participate in the strikes it called for to drop the basic system that the Ministry brought at the beginning of the school season.

While the Minister of National and Primary Education defended this system and said that it preserved previous gains and guaranteed incentives, teachers called it the “system of tragedies” because it came with new burdens, tasks, and great penalties, and deprived them of job stability.

Abu Bakr Esho tells Al Jazeera Net that he participated in all the protest stations with his colleagues, only to be surprised when he was suspended from work and referred to the disciplinary council after being accused of unjustified absence from work and incitement.

He added, "After a number of teachers were suspended from work, I participated in a protest inside the school, and published a picture of myself on social media sites, including expressions of solidarity with my detained colleagues. I found my name on the second list of those arrested on the grounds of unjustified absence from work and incitement through social media to stop teaching." the job".

Despite his arrest weeks ago, the file of Esho and the rest of the 545 detainees was not referred to the disciplinary councils, and the education and education prosecutors refused to receive their grievances.

While the dialogue has been ongoing for months between the unions and the government to amend the basic system, and at a time when the teachers decided to return to the classroom and end 3 months of strike and suspension of classes, it seems that the file of the arrest of hundreds of teachers and the deduction of wages threatens the truce, and portends the return of congestion in the education sector, According to what union activists confirmed.

Protests by contract teachers in Morocco (Al Jazeera)

Constitutional right

The decision to suspend teachers from work - pending their presentation to the disciplinary council - sparked condemnation in human rights and trade union circles, as the Moroccan Coalition of Human Rights Bodies, which includes more than 20 human rights associations, considered these arrests “a tantamount to eliminating the right to peaceful demonstration and protest.”

He called in a statement to immediately reverse these decisions, which “will only add to the situation’s crisis and tension,” calling for the reversal of these decisions and the return of all detainees without restrictions or conditions.

The National Labor Union in Morocco also sent a letter to the Prime Minister in which it called on him to intervene urgently in order to stop what it called “arbitrary measures” and arrests taken against men and women in education, due to them exercising their constitutional right to strike, “taking into account the highest interests of male and female students and the public school in general.” To restore confidence to institutions and provide a positive climate for the continuation of study.”

The National Coordination for Education organized protests in a number of cities in solidarity with those arrested and to demand that the Ministry withdraw these decisions.

Member of the National Coordination of the Education Sector, Abdul Wahab Al-Suhaimi, believes that the Ministry of Education’s adoption of the “injunctive approach” to end the strikes is contrary to the law and the constitution, noting that the teachers were exercising their constitutional right to strike, and were not absent from work.

Al-Suhaimi confirmed to Al Jazeera Net that the teachers did not stop their protest movement, but rather temporarily suspended the protest after 3 months, and they will return to resuming the strikes.

He added, "The conditions that prompted us to go out to protest since last October are still in place, and instead of the ministry listening to our demands and improving our situation, it has turned to punishment, wage deductions, and suspension from work, which will inflame the situation and push us to return to protest again in shortest time".

A previous protest by teachers against the basic system in Rabat (Al Jazeera)

Withdraw all actions

While teachers returned to their classrooms, ending months of confusion witnessed by the public school, dialogue is still ongoing between the unions and the Ministry of National Education to amend the basic system to be acceptable to the protesters.

Abdullah Aghmemit, the national secretary of the National University of Education, told Al Jazeera Net that during recent meetings with the Ministry of National Education, he expressed his union’s protest and dissatisfaction with what he called “the retaliatory approach in dealing with the protesters’ file.”

He added, "We consider these arrests to be a blow to union freedoms, which is what we expressed the moment they were announced in our meeting with the ministry, and we asked it to clarify these procedures."

According to sources close to the dialogue, the Ministry of National Education has formed a committee to study this file, and the task of this committee will be to divide the detainees into categories, and the arrests issued against some will be withdrawn, while disciplinary councils will be activated against others.

However, Aghammit says, “His union rejects this methodology, and believes that the suspended teachers were all exercising their right to strike, and the decisions taken by the ministry through its academies are incorrect, and are considered a restriction of this right.”

He called for the withdrawal of all punitive measures, whether wage deductions or suspensions from work, against all detainees, male and female, without exception.

He believes that the continuation of these measures will have an impact on the educational system, and congestion will remain within schools. He said, "There is no point in maintaining this retaliatory approach in light of the professors' return to the departments and their varying involvement in the educational support process."

He added, "If a courageous political decision is taken to stop these measures, it will have positive repercussions on the level of confidence of the workers in the ministry, and on the remainder of the school year. The opposite is true. If these sanctions continue, we will witness a return to the strike and the suspension of studies."

The Ministry of National Education is expected to hold a meeting with the unions on Tuesday, January 30, to discuss this file in detail, amid the anticipation of teachers, their representative bodies, and the legal community.

The Moroccan government announced the cancellation of the contract, but the unions questioned the seriousness of the decision (Al Jazeera)

Has the contract expired?

In conjunction with the ongoing dialogue sessions between unions and the government to amend the basic system for men and women in education, the official spokesman for the government, Mustafa Paytas, announced after the government council held last Thursday that the file of contract teachers had been completed after amending the law establishing regional academies for education and training.

A government statement explained that amending the law falls within the framework of the legislative measures taken to implement the outcomes of the agreement of 10 and 26 December 2023 signed between the government and the unions. Accordingly, the phrase “employee” will be adopted instead of the phrase “human resources” in all articles of the new special statute.

However, the Education Coordination Department viewed this announcement with some apathy, and Abdul Wahab Al-Suhaimi considered that the government did not cancel the contract as it claimed, but rather re-established it by law.

As for the member of the National Coordination of Education, this is not the first time that the government has announced the termination of the contract, while it only changes the titles, from contract professors to academic staff, to human resources and then to public employees.

He said, "Ending the contract will not be achieved except by integrating the contractors into the public service and empowering them to hold financial positions centralized within the positions of the Ministry of Education."

Source: Al Jazeera