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The Shifting Status of Moroccan Languages in Morocco:

Berber and Language Politics in the Moroccan Educational System

Fatima Sadiqi

University of Fes

Introduction

The geography and history of Morocco have largely determined language policy

in the educational systems of this country. Geographically, Morocco is at the crossroads

of the Greater Maghreb (Mauritania, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia), Europe, and the rest of

the African continent. This fact rendered its frontiers porous, hence, historically,

Morocco has been the target of repeated invasions and conquests by Greeks, Phoenicians,

Arabs, and more recently Western Europeans. All these civilizations have deeply

influenced Morocco and contributed to its linguistic and cultural diversity. This diversity

was, in turn, bound to affect language policies in the educational systems of Morocco.

Being what they are, language policies were the result of language politics, i.e. dynamics

involving various contestations, oppositions and compromises.

Four major languages are used in Morocco: Standard (written) Arabic, Berber

(Amazigh), Moroccan (dialectical) Arabic, and French. Each of these languages has

specific functions and carries specific social meanings: Standard Arabic is the official

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language, the language of the government, the mosque, education and the media. French

has the status of “second” language in public education and predominates in the private

sector, it is also the language of business, administration, and a large body of literature.

Berber has historical legitimacy; it is the symbol of cultural specificity in the larger Arab-

Muslim world, the language of home and intimate settings; and since 2011 an official

language.

Language management in Morocco has always evolved around education, and the

languages that are taught in schools acquire greater social and symbolic status than those

that are not. What language(s) to teach and in what amount have always depended on the

political motives of the policy-makers. With the coming of Islam, Arabic became the

language of instruction and knowledge transmission1. A traditional and religion-based

system of education was established and consolidated throughout the centuries that

separate the coming of Islam and European colonization. Arabic was taught to strengthen

Islam and vice-versa. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the French and Spanish

colonizers made every effort to disseminate their languages through the educational

system, with the French succeeding far better than the Spanish. Again French and

Spanish were taught in schools to consolidate the French and Spanish civilizations. As a

reaction, Arab nationalists made counter attempts at reviving and modernizing the

traditional Arabic-based school system. With the advent of globalization, Berber and

Moroccan Arabic, which were marginalized under the French Protectorate and during the

decades of state-building, are finding space in key domains of power such as cinema,

theater, arts, education, and in the case of Berber the Constitution. The shifting status of

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languages in the Moroccan educational system is a product of the historical, political and

socio-economic environments which have produced it. This shifting status creates

changes that not only affect pedagogy and curricula but also gender, religion, and other

domains of power relations.

In this chapter, I address the historical, political, social and cultural environments

which have accompanied the major shifts of status in the languages of Moroccan schools.

I will first deal with the traditional system of education, the pre-colonial system, then the

postcolonial system of education and finally the state of affairs in the current era. These

three phases are characterized by an interesting interplay between language politics,

language policy and wider social, economic and political concerns. They also reflect the

conflictual relation between tradition and modernity, religion and secularism, specificity

and globalization and the way these are reflected in language policy implementation in

the classroom .

The Pre-Colonial System of Education

Education was considered a priority long before the French occupation of

Morocco. This is symbolized in the fact that Al-Qarawiyyin university in Fes was built in

the 9th

century, three centuries before the prestigious university of Bologna (Italy).

The pre-colonial system of education was primarily urban and comprised three

levels of study: the msid or jama’ (Qur’anic primary school for children), the medersa

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(called zaouia in rural areas), the equivalent of secondary school, and the Qarawiyyin

university. The language of teaching in these three levels was Arabic and the

predominant method of teaching in the first and second levels was memorization. With

respect to the content, Qur’anic studies occupied a central place in the curricular.

Msids received children, usually boys, at a young age (5-6) and specialized in

having children memorize the Qur’an. In the medersas and zaouias an introduction to

theology, Islamic law and Qur’anic interpretation is offered. These courses were

supplemented by the study of Arabic grammar, literature and arithmetic. As for the

Qarawiyyin university, it offered a more versatile education: subjects like philology,

philosophy, biology, and mathematics constituted the core of the curriculum. Many great

Arab and Berber scholars from various countries graduated from the Qarawiyyin

university: Al-Idrissi, geographer, Ibn Tofail, doctor and philosopher, Ibn Battuta,

traveler, and most notably Ibn Khaldun, the great medieval historian.

In the eve of the Protectorate, 150.000 pupils visited the msids and 2.500 the

medersas2. Today the msid and the Qarawiyyin university still function largely in their

original form, but the secondary schools have become part of the modern system of

education. The famous medersa Bu’naniya in Fes has become a touristic site. The 1968

reform of Qur’anic schools allowed the introduction of other subjects such as arithmetic

and language arts in the msid curriculum with the aim of helping to reduce the

overcrowding in public schools.

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From the language politics perspective, Arabic had precedence over colloquial

languages, Berber and Moroccan Arabic, because it was associated with Qur’an and

Islam. Because of these prerogatives this sate of affairs hardly met with opposition. This

was also corroborated by the fact that illiteracy was widespread.

The Colonial System of Education

The French considered the colonization of Morocco as a mission civilisatrice

(civilizing mission). The strategy they adopted to carry out this mission was the policy of

a modern and French-based education. Gordon (1962:7) sums up the strategy of the

French in the following words:

When the Portuguese colonized, they built churches;

when the British colonized, they built trading stations;

when the French colonized, they built schools.

Indeed, the first concern of the French when they occupied Morocco was to

introduce and disseminate the French language and lifestyle through education. They did

not wait for the Fes Treaty3 to launch the system of Franco-Arab schools in cities and,

more often, in consulates. They needed young mediators between the indigenous society

and the one they wanted to create and use. The new French system had to co-exist with

the traditional Moroccan system of education which they could not supplant. The two

systems were in opposition from the start and ever since, they never ceased to be a source

of direct conflict between an Arab-Islamic tradition vehicled by Standard Arabic and

Western culture vehicled by French or Arabic-French bilingualism.

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The French-based system of education was a perfect imitation of the one that

existed in France. This system comprised three types of schools: European schools,

Franco-Islamic schools, and Free schools. Whereas the European and Franco-Islamic

schools were public, the free schools were private.

European schools comprised three levels: the primary level (which lasted five

years), the secondary level (which lasted seven years covering the first and second

cycles) and the higher level (university). Only children of the colonizing French

community and Moroccan children from the elite upper class went to European schools.

The Franco-Islamic schools were of several types and were based mainly on the

social class of the students’ parents. The “Ecoles des Fils de Notables” (Schools of Sons

of Nobelmen) were primary schools in urban areas; they were reserved for a limited

number of upper class children. The “Ecoles Rurale” were for country children. Only a

selected and limited number of students from both types of schools were allowed to go on

to secondary school. As for the “free schools”, they were also of several types, many of

which are now under government control.

In all these three types of school, French was instituted as the language of

instruction, and Classical Arabic as a “foreign language”. The colonial educational policy

was elitist and sexist vis-à-vis the Moroccan population. By favoring the cities over rural

areas, it sought to reinforce class hierarchy and produce an urban elite that would be

willing to adopt the French way of life and reject the indigenous culture. It was sexist in

focusing more on the education of Moroccan boys than girls in the name of “respect of

cultural mores”, in promoting the education of the French and Jewish, but not that of

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Muslim girls, and in presenting the French culture and values as “universal” and

“superior”.

In a further attempt to strengthen the position of the French language in the face

of the growing popularity of Arabic, and in accordance with the policy of divide-to-rule,

the French colonizers created the Dahir Berbère (Berber Decree) in 1930 by virtue of

which rural Berbers were not to be ruled by the prevailing Islamic law. This Decree

opened the door to the creation of Franco-Berber schools from which Arabic was

excluded. The multiplicity of schools based on French and Berber and the closing of

Arabic-based Qur’anic schools in Berber-speaking regions was meant to promote Berber

and Moroccan Arabic through formal teaching and, thus, counter the growing status of

Standard Arabic as the symbol of national and cultural identity.

The policy of Franco-Berber schools aimed also to separate the two ethnic blocks:

Arabs and Berbers. This separation was calculated to weaken the linguistic and cultural

ties between Moroccans and ultimately produce a new generation of Berbers who would

be more sympathetic to the French Christian culture than to the Arabic Islamic one. This

new development continued the original conflict between the traditional and modern

systems of education alluded to above.

As a reaction to this divide-to-rule strategy, individual nationalists started as early

as the 1920s to build “free schools” which were conceived as an alternative to the French

schools. These were designed as a modernized version of the traditional Qur’anic

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schools, thought to be too archaic. They offered modern curricular (sciences,

mathematics, etc.) and used Standard Arabic as the medium of instruction. These schools

were not only meant to preserve and promote Standard Arabic, but also to ignite and

sustain nationalism. Free schools were extremely popular during the struggle for

independence and most of the political leaders of the newly independent Morocco were

trained in these schools. It is also the militants of these schools who persuaded the French

colonizers to introduce Arabic in the French schools; this was realized after World War

Two. In a sense, the free schools “prepared” Standard Arabic for the status of “official”

and “national” language. By contrast, the nationalists exploited the colonizer’s Berber

Decree to stigmatize Berber as a “language of discord”.

The Post-Independence Educational System

Morocco obtained its Independence in 1956. In this year, France departed from

Morocco, leaving behind a largely illiterate country, with only 40 engineers, 30 general

practitioners and 30 lawyers, in a population of 10 million4. To consolidate its status

nationally and internationally, Morocco needed linguistic and cultural unity. National

unity was translated into making Standard Arabic the only official language of Morocco.

This was a requirement to becoming part of the larger Arab Umma (nation) where

Standard Arabic is the lingua franca. The promotion of Standard Arabic also necessitated

reducing the amount of French and the marginalization of Berber and Moroccan Arabic.

In his 1958 Throne speech, King Mohamed V said:

We need an education that is Moroccan in its thinking,

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Arabic in its language and Muslim in its spirit.

Thus, the elite of the late 1950s opted for the strategy of maintaining the political

and social status quo. It is within this overall atmosphere that Arabization became the

central goal of educational policy. The history of Arabization in Moroccan schools has

not, however, been smooth and continuous. While the political climate of the time

supported it, its implementation clashed with ground realities where opinions diverged

between tradition and modernity. Two major trends could be discerned on the political

level: the Westernized modern trend which favored balanced bilingual education and the

traditional trend which favored the promotion of Arab-Islamic culture and Arabization.

The implementation or non-implementation of Arabization depended on the trend which

constituted the majority in the government.

The Istiqlal (Independence) Party was in the government in the years that

followed independence and, being ideologically associated with nationalism and Arabity,

this party conditioned the reconstruction of a shattered nation and its integration within

the broader Arab Umma with Arabization in educational policy. The implementation of

this policy met with serious challenges such as lack of sufficient teachers and funds.

Consequently, bilingual (French and Arabic) education was maintained except for the

first year of primary education which could be completely Arabized in 1957. Gradually,

more hours of instruction in Arabic were offered in Moroccan public schools.

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The policy of Arabization in schools may be described as horizontal as it was

introduced gradually. The Arabization of the primary education lasted three years and the

secondary education was Arabized within the following seven years. By 1980, Morocco

had fully Arabized the first four levels of primary education, while in secondary

education 25% to 50% of the subjects were taught only in Arabic. It was not until 1990

that primary and secondary education were totally Arabized.

Arabization was affected by the presence of a system of private schools alongside

the state ones. There are two types of such schools: the original “free schools” created by

the Nationalists during the Protectorate and which have adopted the state schools

curricula, and the European schools which continued under the auspices of the Mission

Universitaire Culturelle Française (French University Cultural Mission) which have

continued to adopt the French system of education with the addition of Arabic as a

“foreign” language. Science and advanced levels of instruction have not, however, been

Arabized. In these and other socioeconomic fields, French continues to dominate. The

Moroccan state’s policy of keeping French as a window on the modern world of

technology and wider communication put a break on Arabization.

The Arabization of the school system was contested by the Berber movement.

Two trends may be singled out here: the extremists who rejected Islam and Arabization

altogether and the moderates who accepted it (see Weitzman 2011, Ennaji, this volume).

The fact that the Istiqlal protagonists who proned Arabization in the public schools sent

their children to French schools greatly weakened the policy of Arabization. On the other

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hand, the fact that knowledge of French, much more than knowledge of Arabic, led to

jobs, fostered pragmatism among Moroccans and highlighted more the importance of

French in education. This ambivalent attitude in policy fostered a negative attitude

among both policy makers and ordinary people. Pro-Arabization people are usually

traditionalist who considered French a legacy of colonization which would hinder

Morocco’s full and genuine independence. Opponents of Arabization favor bilingualism

in schools and underline the pragmatic utility of French without denying the pride they

have in Arabic.

All in all, the failure of complete Arabization in the Moroccan educational system

was due to a number of factors: lack of consistency in successive educational policies,

lack of adequate expertise and professionalism in the planning by the Ministry of

Education, centralization of decision-making in what concerns curricula in the Ministry

of Education, lack of coordination among the offices and public administrations, lack of

program assessment, and the increasing politicization of Arabization.

Attitudes to Arabization in Morocco have always been conflictual and ambiguous

among politicians and non-politicians. Attacks and counter-attacks spanned the decades

that followed Morocco’s independence. A further source of problems is the fact that

Standard Arabic is not a native language of Moroccans. This language co-exists with two

mother tongues: Moroccan Arabic and Berber, the languages of everyday

communication. The latter are often used in class to explain the former. Indeed, being a

highly inflected language, the teaching of Arabic grammar has always been perceived as

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a tedious task. Genuine attempts at simplifying the language have been undertaken by the

Institute of Arabization from the mid-1970s onward.

The Current Situation: Challenges of Education and Globalization

From the mid-1980s onward, the Moroccan educational system has had to face

another challenge: the growing demand for more human rights, including cultural and

linguistic rights. During this period, Moroccan society has been experiencing rapid

change, whose implications are myriad. The majority of Morocco’s population (56%)

now lives in urban areas, with the figure steadily rising at an annual rate of 3%. There is a

spectacular drop in Morocco’s population growth rate – from a steady 3% annual rate in

the 1960s and 1970s, to 1.3% at present. The rate of female illiteracy in rural areas is

appallingly high: 77%, while in urban areas it has dropped to 49%. Taken altogether,

nearly two-thirds of Moroccan women are illiterate, as compared to 41% of men. In the

rural areas, only 3 out of 8 girls aged 8-10 attend primary school and only 1 out of 10

attend secondary school5. Rural poverty and underdevelopment heavily affect the

country’s rates of infant mortality – 228 per 1000,000 live births (307 per 100,000 in

rural areas), according to the United Nations development Programme, Human

development Report, March 2001.

Alongside these changes, Morocco witnesses a steady democratization process,

including an “opening” on Berber with the aim of introducing it in all levels of education.

Berber is becoming increasingly politicized and its codification has given rise to heated

13

debates between Islamists and modernists: the former opting for the adoption of the

Arabic script and the latter for the Latin one. To strike a balance and avoid polemics, the

language planners chose a third option: Tifinagh6, the alphabet with which Berber was

originally written.

The new language policy on Berber was initiated after a speech given by the

former king of Morocco, Hassan II, in March 1999, in which he made reference to the

need to reform the Moroccan educational system and establish a new language policy in

this field. Shortly afterwards, during the 1999-2000 school year, the National Charter for

Education and Training was adopted with the agreement of all political parties and

syndicates. This charter aimed to define the future steps towards higher performances in

national education and to break with the past. It also aimed to restructure the Moroccan

educational system; it included a series of articles which are related with the future

language policy that is to be implemented in the educational system.

The new Charter acknowledges other languages beside Arabic; it explicitly

mentions the need to have an open approach towards the Berber language. It also makes

reference to the importance of improving the educational system and the teaching of

foreign languages, and even to the need to have a good command of them and use them

in class. The Charter shows that language policy needs to be compatible with the

country’s socio-linguistic reality and with the educational practice carried out. It is a

proof that multilingualism can be a source of conflict among languages, especially

between classical Arabic and foreign languages.

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The language planners have, thus, opted for a multi-sector language policy where

the teaching of Berber is perceived as a token of modernity and diversity. It is interesting

to note that Berber was excluded from the school system in the post-colonial era in the

name of unity, and it is in the same name that it is introduced in this system. Likewise,

the once association of Berber tradition is shifting to the association of this language with

modernity. This shows that tradition is linked to religion in Morocco, and as Berber is not

backed by a holy book, it becomes secular, thus modern. This is proof that the concepts

of tradition and modernity are not fixed; they are constantly recreated in specific

historical environments and for specific political aims.

The presence of French and now Berber in the Moroccan educational system

strips teaching from the religious database that is associated with Standard Arabic.

Further, not being supported by a holy book, Berber is further secularizing the Moroccan

educational system. In order to solve the problem of training instructors, curricular

design, pedagogical materials, etc. in 2001 the King created the Royal Institute of the

Amazigh Culture in Rabat.

Thus, with the advent of globalization, “linguistic authority”, just like religious

authority, is no longer placed in one single language. New dynamics between Moroccan

languages is being attested: the initial rivalry over symbolic power between Standard

Arabic and French, on the one hand, and Standard Arabic and Berber, on the other hand,

is giving way to a drastic reduction of the space of Arabic in education, the emergence of

Berber in schools as a sign of “opening” and democratization”, the adoption of French by

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conservatives as a sign of “pragmatism” (French, more than any other language leads to

jobs), the emergence of once “foreign” languages, namely English, and to a lesser extent

Spanish, as strong languages of education, especially the private sector.

Nowadays, educational policy in Morocco is in going through a state of flux, as

new reforms are being worked out. The following are some of the challenges that

surround these reforms:

Providing adequate access to education in the face of demographic pressures,

urbanization and limited resources;

Adapting secondary and graduate education to the needs of changing job markets and

globalized economies;

Reconciling competing ideas about the role of culture, national identity, religion and

secularism in education;

Expanding opportunities for private education in systems that have traditionally been

funded and administered by the state; and

Strengthening the capacity for national research and development, not least to

encourage foreign-trained professionals to remain in the region.

Civic education is in demand in Morocco where institutions face new internal and

external pressures for change. A more open debate about the political evolution of

Morocco is also likely to encourage a more active debate about the role of education, and

alternative models for change. In short, improved access to and quality of education is

generally seen as central to the stable evolution of the country in political terms. But as in

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other spheres, change in the education sector can also imply near-term risks in an

environment of rising expectations and limited resources. That said, the failure to meet

emerging education challenges will place new pressures on government and society, with

negative implications for stability and development. Likewise, Moroccan language

planning is too centralized, and standardization policies are often resisted, notably in

educational settings.

Conclusions

In different ways, and with different emphases, education has been central to the

political formation of Moroccan society in the last century. It is also closely linked to the

longer-term performance of economy, social opportunity and the renewal of political

elites. The shifting status of Moroccan languages in the educational system is certainly

prompting various reforms, but the implementation of these is often complicated by the

inevitable clash between various ideological trends and pressing ground realities.

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1 Little is known about the status of education in pre-Islamic Morocco.

2 This information is taken from Brochure edited by Patrick Cavaglieri , Lycée Lyautey (1994).

3 The Fes Treaty officialized the French Protectorate.

4 This information is taken from Brochure edited by Patrick Cavaglieri , Lycée Lyautey (1994).

5 This information is taken from Brochure edited by Patrick Cavaglieri , Lycée Lyautey (1994).

6 The national debate on Berber is very reminiscent of a similar debate on the Plan for integrating women

in development, with the Islamist against reforming the Family Law and the modernist for. Berber started

to be taught in some schools since September 2005.