Last week, Berber language teachers in the northern Moroccan city of Nador were astonished by the (governmental) Regional Directorate of National Education assigning Berber language teachers to teach subjects other than Berber at the preparatory and secondary levels.
In the same period, Tamazight teachers went on strike in front of the Education Directorate in the central governorate of Souss-Massa (governmental), in protest of what they described as the “random and improvisation” defined by the file of teaching Amazigh in the region.
The Custodial Ministry has been involved in the process of teaching the Amazigh language in Morocco for more than 19 years, in partnership with the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture.
Lack of vision and few positions
Ahmed Dahouz, head of the Regional Association of Teachers of the Amazigh Language in the city of Tiznit (central), says, “Protests are repeated every school entry season, with the absence of a clear vision in generalizing the teaching of Amazigh, in addition to different methods of dealing with it from one region to another and sometimes in the same region.”
In a statement to “Sky News Arabia”, Al-Dahouz explained that “there are those who find no interest in promoting the teaching of Tamazight in the Moroccan school due to flimsy justifications,” adding that the custodian ministry “is unable to implement its promises, which are mainly to generalize the teaching of the Amazigh language.”
The President of the Regional Association of Teachers of the Amazigh Language in Tiznit also recorded that the education directorates in the governorates of the Kingdom allocate small positions to the Amazigh.
Achievements of teaching Tamazight
In an explanation of the achievements that have been made in the field of teaching Tamazight at the level of the “Souss Massa” region, the head of the Educational Affairs Department at the Regional Academy, Mohamed Bentaher, confirms that the academy “has reached the limits of this year in the outcome of October 2021 to 87.7 percent of the students benefiting from the language.” Amazigh at the governorate level.
In his contact with Sky News Arabia, the official at the Academy of Education in Souss (government directorate) revealed that “the Amazigh language is taught in all classrooms in two forms: professors specializing in the Amazigh language, whose number is estimated at 107 professors in the Souss Massa governorate, in addition to non-teachers.” Dual specialists also study the Amazigh language.
From this point of view, the speaker himself does not believe that “there is any improvisation or lack of clarity in dealing with the file of teaching the Amazigh language.”
However, the head of the Department of Educational Affairs at the Regional Academy, Mohamed Bentaher, does not deny that “there is a problem of a great shortage of Tamazight professors at the governorate level and at the national level as well.”
Bentaher considered, “We cannot cover with the small number of Amazigh graduates, which reach 14 professors each year, all requests to teach the Amazigh language as a specialization.”
generalization of teaching
In the course of teaching Tamazight since 2003 until today in Morocco, Abdelhadi Amharf, a professor specializing in Tamazight at the University of Abdelmalek Saadi in Tetouan, believes that “despite the emergence of some initial indications among Moroccan political actors and their understanding of the integration of Tamazight into the educational system, it is noted that there is a deep chasm. It is very clear between the actual situation of this language and the legal, political and constitutional references, which were not activated in order to do justice to this language and to enact a just linguistic policy that does justice to all the linguistic components in Morocco.
In his speech to “Sky News Arabia”, Abdelhadi Amharf stressed the need for “this issue to take place without any bids from any party, because it is an issue that concerns all Moroccans, as it requires patience, perseverance, and seriously thinking about the best way to succeed in integrating the Amazigh language into the educational fabric.” In all its stages and for all Moroccans.
Academic researcher in Amazigh culture and language, Jamal Abernous, bears the current situation of “successive governments, the latest of which is the government whose term has expired (meaning the coalition led by the Islamic Justice and Development Party), as its management of the issue of integrating Amazigh and activating its official character was below the level of needs and expectations.”
And the academic researcher in Amazigh culture and language continued, in a statement to “Sky News Arabia”, that “the current government has a historic opportunity to overcome the status quo, and since it is at the beginning of its tenure, it must show what reveals its good intentions in this direction.”
Therefore, Jamal Abernous hopes that the new government will result in “concrete measures whose impact can be seen on the value of this language in the Moroccan linguistic market, such as declaring institutional commitments to generalizing its teaching, while starting to activate it on the basis of binding projects that do not leave the executives with a margin of delay and detour.”
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