Education in Morocco: Who Still Dares to Dream the School?

We talk endlessly of reforming the school. But who still dares to dream it?

Before it is a building or a curriculum, a school is an idea—the idea of learning how to become human. And this is the idea we have forgotten.

In my previous article, "Education in Morocco: Pandora's Box," I tried to open the system's wounds, to look at its raw flesh, without detour.

But today, I want to speak differently.

I want to speak of what still palpitates beneath the ruins.

I want to speak of the spark.

Of this school that I imagine, that I hope for, that I sometimes see in my dreams:

a school that is free, human, inspiring.

A school where we learn to think before we learn to obey.

A school that does not teach fear, but curiosity.

A school that forms conscious beings, not carbon copies.

What if, for once, we dared utopia?

What if we imagined, together, what the Moroccan school of tomorrow could be?

Not the one of reforms and decrees, but the one of heart, meaning, and beauty.

So I dream. If I were a teacher, here is how I would transmit.

Here is the school I would like to see reborn: the school of the neglected utopia.

If I were a history-geography teacher…

I would start by telling the story of the world. Not through the eyes of the winners, nor through the prism of the colonizer, but through our own gaze—that of an ancient people, heir to a millennial kingdom. I would teach history not as a succession of conquests, but as a weaving of souls and cultures. Like a constellation where every civilization illuminates the other.

And when the time came to speak of Morocco, I would do so in its entire truth—a plural country, Amazigh, African, Arab, Mediterranean. I would tell my students that Morocco was not born from colonization, but long before it. That it has offered the world thinkers, poets, doctors, builders, routes, and knowledge. And above all, that our heritage, often eclipsed by Western narratives, has nothing to envy from those who believe themselves to be at the center of the world. I would teach them that our Amazigh identity is not a secondary belonging, but an ancient root, inscribed in our collective DNA.

I would instruct them to read history with their own eyes, so that they could then write it with their own voice.

And geography, I would make it walk. We would go outside, we would observe the relief, the shadows, the earth, the wind. Because we do not teach geography from a map: we teach it from the world.

If I were an Islamic education teacher…

How could I claim to teach religion without a profound knowledge of all religions? How to speak of tolerance without having read the Torah, the Gospel, the Bhagavad-Gita?

If I were an Islamic education teacher, I would not recite, I would question.

I would read the suras as one reads poems, I would explain their beauty, their grammar, their wisdom. I would remind that faith is not a reflex, but a consciousness. And that a good Islamic education teacher must, above all, be a researcher, a reader, a humanist.

If I were a mathematics teacher…

I would not only teach equations and formulas. I would teach my students to see the hidden beauty in logic. I would show them that numbers are not cold: they breathe, they dance, they repeat like a heartbeat in nature. I would like to tell them about the Fibonacci sequence, about that spiral found in seashells, sunflowers, galaxies…

Because deep down, mathematics does not only serve to calculate, but to understand the harmony of the world.

If I were a physics-chemistry teacher…

I would remember that science is not a series of laws to recite, but an act of wonder. And to inspire wonder, one must oneself be curious. I would have them see the colors of a reaction, listen to the silence of an experiment, guess the invisible forces. But for that, I would need to keep searching. To be trained in both the rigor and the poetry of the world.

If I were a life sciences teacher…

I would have them touch the earth, smell the leaves, listen to the insects.

But for that, I would need to know nature myself, not from textbooks, but in the mountains, the fields, the gardens. How can one teach life without frequenting it?

Here again, uniform pedagogy fails: we teach biology like we teach mathematics, when it is a subject of the living. It demands an organic, sensitive, empirical pedagogy.

If I were an Arabic language teacher…

I would start with beauty, not with grammar. But for that, I would need to master it deeply, in its diversity. To know the classical language and the dialect, ancient poetry and contemporary prose. A language teacher must be a passer, not a guardian. And it is because we no longer train passers that our students detach themselves from languages—all languages.

If I were a French language teacher…

I would tell them that French, in Morocco, is neither a shame nor a pride: it is a tool.

But to teach it, one must love it. Not as an imposed heritage, but as an open window.

I would have them read Francophone literature from Africa, Haiti, the Maghreb.

I would show them that a language lives by what we make of it, not by what we receive from it.

If I were an English language teacher…

I would make them understand that English is not just a skill: it is a key. But to transmit this key, one must have used it oneself. Watch films in the original version, read Shakespeare and Maya Angelou, listen to pop culture as a language of the world.

If I were a Tamazight language teacher…

I would not only teach a language, but a memory.

I would speak of the mountains, of words that smell of earth, of songs that have crossed centuries. I would teach my students to hear what our language says about the world: patience, pride, the connection with nature and ancestors. For teaching Tamazight is reminding that diversity is not a threat, but a living richness.

If I were an economics teacher…

I would teach them to think before counting. But for that, one must have experienced the world of work, the company, precariousness, wealth. Economics is not understood from an office, but from the street. And that is precisely the problem: our teachers are trained outside of reality. How can they teach society without being anchored in it?

If I were a physical education teacher…

I would not teach them to win. I would teach them to persevere. But to transmit that, one must have understood the value of effort, the collective, respect. We often teach sports as a physical subject. But it is a moral school. A school of rhythm, courage, surpassing oneself.

If I were an art teacher…

I would not correct the students: I would listen to them. I would tell them that to create is to learn to understand oneself. But how do you teach art in a framework where everything must be measured, standardized, validated?

This, perhaps, is the heart of the problem. We apply the same pedagogy to all disciplines, when each subject calls for a different breath. We teach painting like we teach grammar. We evaluate creativity like we evaluate a demonstration.

And yet, it is in freedom that genius is born. Art, history, philosophy, faith, language… all require singular pedagogies. A school that refuses this singularity, refuses life.

If I were a civic and citizenship education teacher…

I would not only teach rights and duties. I would try to embody citizenship daily—in the way of listening, debating, respecting the word of the other.

I would remind that citizenship is not limited to voting or obeying the law, but that it begins in the simplest gestures: throwing one's trash in the right place, respecting a queue, speaking with kindness.

I would also remind that citizenship is a way of inhabiting the world with consciousness. And I would teach my students that collective responsibility always begins with a small personal victory over oneself.

But if dreaming the way of teaching is essential, let us not forget to first dream the way of learning. Because the school, above all, belongs to those who live it from the inside: the students.

And what if we placed the student at the center of this dream?

If I dreamed the school through their eyes…

I would dream of a school that is free, dignified, and accessible to all, where children from the countryside and those from the cities would have the same right to light, to knowledge, to curiosity.

A school where the poorest would no longer have to choose between learning and providing, where no student would be humiliated for not having paid a fee or bought a notebook with the right cover.

I would dream of a school that is clean, breathable, welcoming, with maintained toilets, aired-out classrooms, walls that no longer ooze abandonment.

A school where young girls could experience their first menstruation without shame or fear, accompanied, understood, respected.

And if, in this dreamed school, we dared to speak about the body—without unease, without shame, without taboo. An education about life, health, relationships. Where young girls would learn to understand their bodies, and boys to respect it. A school where sex education would not be a forbidden word, but a lesson in dignity and humanity.

Because silence has never protected anyone; it has only maintained fear, confusion, or violence.

I would dream of an inclusive school, where children with disabilities would no longer be exceptions to manage, but full-fledged students. Where access ramps would replace insurmountable steps, and where every gaze would be an invitation to belong.

I would dream of a school with a nurse, a psychologist, a social worker.

A place of listening and protection, where one could speak when suffering, where we would no longer let a child go through their wounds, their fears, or the cruelty of others alone.

And if, in this school, we stopped asking students about their parents' profession?

Because these questions, seemingly harmless, dig invisible walls between children—some proud, others embarrassed. A school where merit would not be measured by a father's address or a mother's salary, but by the light that each one carries within.

I would also dream of a textbook recycling system, so that a book could have several lives, several students, several stories.

And of a hot, simple, fraternal, shared meal—not a canteen, but a moment of community where we would learn that eating together is also learning to live together.

A school where we would cultivate respect for the living, for oneself and for others. Where we would learn to say hello, to listen, to apologize. A school that does not only grade results, but the way of being in the world.

But dreaming the school is not only dreaming the classroom. It is dreaming everything that orbits around it: those who train, those who decide, those who imagine the programs, those who accompany.

The school is an ecosystem: a collective breath, a fragile balance between those who teach, those who learn, and those who decide.

So, if I were on the side of those who train, conceive, or decide…

Dreaming the school is also dreaming everything that supports it. For to change the classroom, we must first transform the vision that fuels it.

If I were a teacher trainer, I would start by speaking to them of the fire. Not the one of programs, but the one of the heart. I would remind them that teaching is not a job, it is a transmission from soul to soul. That before being a knowledge, it is a way of being in the world. I would tell them that the most beautiful teacher is not the one who shines, but the one who illuminates.

If I were a program designer, I would start with a simple question:

who are we speaking to?

To Moroccan children, heirs to a plural culture, Amazigh, Arab, African, Mediterranean, and yet unique. So I would weave a program in their image: rooted and open. I would have Ibn Rochd and Aimé Césaire dialogue, Fatima Mernissi and Kateb Yacine, Ahmed Sefrioui and Tahar Ben Jelloun. I would rehabilitate our languages, our poets, our artisans of thought.

I would dare to invent new subjects because our school lacks breath, not knowledge. Because too often, we learn to answer before having even learned to question.

I would first create a subject of general culture, a transversal subject, where we would learn to connect the dots between history, literature, politics, arts, and daily life. A subject where curiosity would be a virtue, not a flaw.

I would also add a subject on criticism, but not criticism for the sake of criticizing—criticism as an art of thinking, of questioning, of understanding before judging. A discipline that would teach students to say "I don't know," and to make this ignorance a door, not a wall.

I would reintroduce philosophy, not as an elitist subject reserved for final years, but as a breath from the youngest age. A school without philosophy is a school without a mirror.

It is depriving children of the right to doubt, to question, to search for themselves.

I would like us to learn to philosophize from primary school, not to quote Plato or Descartes, but to ask simple and essential questions: Why obey? Why be just? What is beauty? What is happiness?

Because philosophy is learning to think for oneself before thinking like others. And in a world saturated with opinions, thinking becomes an act of resistance.

I would also dream of a subject on artistic expression, where we would talk about art history, but also about graffiti, slam, rap, cinema, where we would learn to translate our emotions into images, words, sounds. Because we do not learn to create to become artists, we learn to create to become ourselves.

And then, a subject on Moroccan heritage. There, I would take students to visit medinas, oases, rock engravings, kasbahs, songs, and gestures.

I would tell them that heritage is not what sleeps in museums, it is what continues to breathe within us. And I would also tell them about Amazigh heritage: symbols, weavings, tales, poems, and ancient words that remind us where we come from.

Finally, perhaps a subject on life, where we would talk about mental health, self-respect, relationship with nature, where we would learn to breathe, to listen, to be silent sometimes too. Because before building citizens, we must first learn to build humans.

And if I were a political decider, I would make the Ministry of Education a living space. A place of dream and courage. I would invite teachers from the field, artists, psychologists, philosophers. I would listen to children. I would draw inspiration from models that have succeeded—the Nordic school, the Japanese school—while inscribing our own genius within it. And I would stop seeing education as a budgetary burden: I would see it as the most beautiful of national riches.

But above all, I would start by valorizing those who carry the foundations: primary school teachers. Those who, every morning, teach to read, to count, to dream. Those who, often in precarious conditions, forge the invisible foundation on which an entire country rests. I would give them the recognition they deserve, security, consideration, the joy of feeling essential. Because a child can only rise if the one who holds out a hand is standing tall.

And if… we simply dreamed together?

Education, deep down, is neither an exact science nor a state affair. It is an act of love and an act of courage. We believed that it was enough to reform, to modernize, to train. But a school is not only reformed: it is breathed, it is inhabited, it is dreamed together.

If we want the generations to come to be freer, more conscious, more sensitive, more responsible, we must teach them not what to think, but how to look. To look at the world, at others, at oneself.

I know well that my words do not smell of chalk or the dust of classrooms. That they have not known the fatigue of grading, nor the din of classes where passion sometimes extinguishes under the weight of programs.

I know that I am not from the field. I know it, and I admit it humbly.

So yes, perhaps my ideas will seem naive to those who face reality every day. But if dreaming the school is naivety, then I cling to it. Because before every real change, there has always been someone who dared to dream out loud so that others might begin to believe.

The sad reality is that our teachers fight, every day, against a rigid, exhausting, sometimes even vampiric system. A system that ends up sucking the passion from those who simply want to transmit light. Some resign from their post, others resign in silence, from their vocation.

And despite everything, many hold on. They hold on, because they still believe that every student can become a world.

And besides, if I have been able to trace my path, it is thanks to these women and men who dreamed. Who believed, one day, that I was capable of more than I thought. For, and I am proud to recall it, I myself am a pure product of the Moroccan public school.

To them, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your luminous pedagogy. Thank you for your benevolent rigor. Thank you for your unshakable faith in curiosity.

But I must remind that we must also look at our own actions.

Because in Morocco as everywhere else, education does not begin on the school bench, it begins in the street, in the house, in the way of waiting one's turn, of speaking to the other, of respecting what surrounds us.

And a teacher may be brilliant, erudite, passionate—but if they perpetuate the small gestures of incivility that plague our daily life, they cease to be a model. For a model, let us remember, is meant to embody the coherence between knowledge and behavior.

And what of our models who, alas, simply, are no more.

The masters of yesterday no longer carry chalk on their fingers, but filters and sponsors. And so it falls to us, creators, artists, influencers, teachers—all combined—to give back to the word "influence" a bit of conscience. For to educate is to influence, and to influence is to educate. The responsibility is the same.

And then, perhaps it is enough to look elsewhere to understand that our utopia is not so foolish.

In the heart of the Aït Bouguemez valley, in the High Atlas, the German-Moroccan couple Stefanie "Itto" Tapal and Haddou Mouzoun created the Campus Vivant'e. This primary school, recognized by the Moroccan state, makes learning rhyme with the rhythm of nature. Here, play, listening, and curiosity become the real subjects. Modest in size, immense in its ambition, it proves that educational change does not need a decree—just courage.

Because before waiting for a national reform, we must relearn to believe in the local school, in the classroom, in the teacher from the neighborhood, in the child from the douar. It is there that the future is born.

Yes, it is a utopia and I do not know if it will take shape. But every renaissance begins with a utopia. But if it must be born somewhere, then let it be born here, in the gaze of a Moroccan child, in the tired but sincere voice of a teacher, in the gesture of a passerby who, simply, picks up a piece of paper fallen to the ground.

The Morocco of tomorrow will not come from above. It will come from below—from those who will have chosen to still believe in transmission, in example, and in the simple beauty of the word "to teach".

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