Fez- In the midst of the dismal state of the Moroccan system of education, I will tell you the latest joke regarding the baccalaureate examination. However, the joke I will relate is upsetting.
While for centuries Morocco was a prominent destination of scholars and knowledge-seekers from the vast Arab and Muslim lands, its education system has reached the death’s door in recent decades.
The authorities have claimed to wipe out cheating in common examinations and, hence, published a series of regulations and preventive measures pretending to suppress cheating by prohibiting candidate students from using electronic devices.
Such regulations are not new, as they appear in every higher common examination.Interestingly, this year the Ministry of Education has adopted the use of detective equipment that supposedly beeps if it detects electronic gadgets.
Although we can concede that the use of detective equipment would abolish cheating or cut its rate in our schools, its funny use has been an interesting aspect of the joke.
“While the controllers have been checking my use of a mobile, the detector has been beeping; in the end we discovered it was for a ten-dirhams coin, for I had no phone,” a student said, adding that “the same apparatus did not make any sound while checking a student in front of me, who, after they left, took out his phone and cheated all throughout the session.”
Abdessslam, a student for a free baccalaureate, said that many of these metal detectors were either off or out of order when controllers came in pretending to make a regular check of classes. He said with a piteous smile that the checking committee visited them in some exams only five minutes before the exam session ended, asking students to put their phones down on the desk. This strange behavior has driven a teacher to argue with the committee, saying that it’s unreasonable to order students to get rid of their devices only at the end of exam time.
The second aspect of the latest baccalaureate joke is the leaking of the exam and that it was shared through social networks well before the exam date. This year, the math exam was leaked the night before the exam. While controversy separated believers and disbelievers of the truth of the posts, there has been conclusive evidence and an official confession that the actual exam papers were leaked.
While Prime Minister Benkirane stated in the regular governmental council meeting that leaking exam papers is a "treason" against the nation, students vandalized schools and cursed officials for such a deplorable act.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education as well as higher examination authorities have not declared their resignation or even expressed an apology to students and their parents for the scandal. They only promised strict, public investigations and gave their orders to students to re-sit for the math exam and to teachers and staff to stay an additional day to supervise them.
For years the authorities have been vowing to reform education. Official speeches and press have exhausted this issue while international reports continue to deride Moroccan education, which puts Moroccans’ hopes and the country’s future at alarm.
As Moroccans, we have felt great shame watching the dismal picture of our baccalaureate exams on national and international news agencies, but the unanswered question is: why do some Moroccans desire to hurt their own homeland?
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