The history of the National Program for Reading in Morocco and vision for Ministry ownership

• In Event: Evidence-based and ministry-led early-grade Arabic reading curriculum reform in Morocco

Proposal

The Government of Morocco has gone through five significant reform efforts in more recent history to address challenges within the formal education sector: the National Education Charter and Education Emergency Plan (1999-2012); the ‘Plan du Gouvernement (2012-2016)’; Vision 2015-2030; the Law for Inclusive Education launched in 2019, and the recently launched Ministry Education Roadmap 2022-2026.

To gain a better sense of the issues surrounding reading in Morocco, USAID supported the Moroccan Ministry of National Education, Preschool and Sports (MoE) in finding effective approaches to improving children’s reading skills. In 2011, the partners began a research phase that provided the basis for a series of projects under the umbrella of Reading for Success. This consisted of three independent yet related studies to better understand the learning context. The studies focused on the early-grade reading curricula and textbooks, teacher training, and teacher attitudes, beliefs and practices toward teaching reading in Arabic. The analyses revealed the need for further research in the field of reading instruction. For this reason, two additional studies were undertaken. The curriculum and textbook study was also extended to include research in the textbook production sector.

This thoughtful research, experimentation, and analysis built a strong, evidence-based foundation for the National Program for Reading (NPR), a USAID-funded early-grade and upper primary literacy project developed in partnership with the MoE as part of the Reading for Success initiative. Following the success of the Small-Scale Experimentation activity, NPR was launched in 2017 to support the MoE in piloting and scaling its emerging early-grade Arabic reading curriculum in grades one through four in all public and private elementary schools nationwide, later expanded to include grades five and six. The project’s main objectives were to improve the materials and instructional methods used to teach Arabic reading and writing in primary schools, expand reading enrichment programs, and improve learning assessment systems. This presentation will focus on the history and context of the National Program for Reading, including the literature review used as a foundation for studies conducted to inform the design of the program through evidence-based decision-making. The presentation will also highlight the USAID vision for supporting the MoE in its ownership of NPR.

Author

• Amina El Abdellaoui, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)