Qur'anic education and social change in Northern Morocco: Perspectives from Chefchaouen

Comparative Education Review

Volumn 50, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 496-517

  Tawil, Sobhi ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33748554502     PISSN: 00104086     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/504820     Document Type: Review

References (52)

1. The term "chronic crisis" was used in a speech delivered by King Mohammed VI on October 8, 1999, and is reproduced in the preface of the national charter on education and training adopted in 1999.
2. Moroccan Household Living Standards Measurement Survey, 1998-99, data reported in Direction de la Statistique, Education, formation, et niveau de vie, vol. 2, Annexes statistiques (Rabat: Direction de la Statistique, 2002).
3. Sobhi Tawil, "Education et développement régional au Maroc: Stratégies éducatives et logiques sociales," in Education et développement économique dans le monde arabe et en Europe, ed. Rainer Biegel and Youssef Alouane (Tunis: Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 1997), 34-64.
4. The Moroccan Household Living Standards Measurement Surveys (1990-91 and 1998-99) collected data on a variety of household characteristics including health, education, employment, consumption, income, and housing conditions. The 1990-91 survey (Direction de la Statistique, Enquête nationale sur le niveau de vie des ménages [Rabat: Direction de la Statistique, 1991]) collected data from 3,400 households across the country, while the 1998-99 survey
5. (Direction de la Statistique, Enquête nationale sur le niveau de vie des ménages [Rabat: Direction de la Statistique, 1999]) was based on a sample of some 5,180 households.
6. Sobhi Tawil, "Household Demand, Basic Education, and Exclusion: Focusing on Out-of-School Children in Morocco," in Basic Education for All: A Global Concern for Quality, ed. L.' Malmberg, S. Hansén, and K. Heino (Vasa: Abo Akademi University, 2000), 137-55.
7. Sobhi Tawil, "Basic Education, Exclusion, and Development: Change, Crisis, and Reform in Moroccan School Education" (PhD diss., University of Geneva, 2004).
8. Kultab, or maktab (as used in other parts of the Muslim world), represents the elementary level of traditional Muslim education. In Morocco this institution is also known as msid. Completion of this elementary level is determined by the complete recitation, transcription, and memorization of the Qur'an. Teaching also includes hygiene and rituals associated with prayer.
9. The chain of the Rif Mountains spreads across the provinces of Tetouan, Chefchaouen, Al Hoceima, and Nador. Ibn Khaldûn refers to the Ghomara as a confederation of tribes to which the Jbala belong. See Ibn Khaldûn, Al-Maqaddima - Discours sur l'histoire universelle, vol. 1 (Paris: Sindbad, 1968), 317, 675, 680.
10. Self-reported literacy figures reported in the general population census of 2004 (Haut Commissariat au Plan, Les résultats de la population légale issue du recensement général de la population et de l'habitat [RGPH], 2004 [Rabat: Haut Commissariat au Plan, 2005]).
11. Preliminary results of the 2004 census were being processed at the time of the writing of this article. Note that data available to the planning department are unreliable, being based on projections and estimations of the population of 6-year-olds to be admitted at the start of each school year; thus, the figures that serve as denominators for enrollment ratios are highly questionable given local demographic changes observed since the last population census in 1994. The situation is further complicated because of migration: (a) in rural communes affected by declining demographic growth rates, official enrollment figures may often be substantially underrepresentative of actual enrollmentsituations, and (b) in urban communes such as the municipality of Chefchaouen that often represents an initial stage of out-migration to Tetouan or abroad, enrollment figures may be grossly inflated as the actual population of primary school-age children is higher than those estimated on the basis of the 1994 census.
12. Barnamij al Aoulauoiate al Ijtimaia (Social Priorities Programme), 1996-2002, combined basic education and basic health projects in 14 of the most disadvantaged regions of Morocco, including Chefchaouen.
13. For the World Customs Organization data, see James Keterrer, "Networks of Discontent in Northern Morocco: Drugs, Opposition, and Urban Unrest," Middle East Report 218 (2001).
14. For the Interpol data, see A. Labrousse and L. Romero, "Maroc: La production de cannabis dans le Rif," Drogues: Traffic International - Bulletin Mensuel 13 (2002): 1-4.
15. Ketterer, "Networks of Discontent in Northern Morocco";
16. Labrousse and Romero, "Maroc";
17. Observatoire Géopolitique des Drogues (OGD), La géopolitique mondiale des drogues: Rapport annuel, 1998-1999 (Paris: OGD, 2002), 9.
18. UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)/Agence pour le Développement des Provinces du Nord (APDN), Morocco Cannabis Survey (Rabat: UNODC/APDN, 2003).
19. Morocco Cannabis Survey Ibid., 7.
20. Pascual Moreno, a Spanish agricultural scientist who has undertaken research on the subject for the European Union, quoted in Labrousse and Romero, "Maroc," 2.
21. OGD, La géopolitique mondiale des drogues.
22. J. Vignet-Zunz, "Montagne et société: Les Jbala dans la problématique Riff-Tell," Abhath 4 (1994): 64.
23. M. Mezzine, "Jihad au pays Jbala (XVIème et XVIIème siècles): Effervescence et règulation," Jbala - Histoire et Société 1 (1994): 63.
24. According to Dale Eickelman (Knowledge and Power in Morocco: The Education of a Twentieth-Century Notable [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985], 24), "Maraboutism was the prevalent popular belief that certain persons, living or dead, possess a special relation toward God which makes them particularly well placed to act as intermediaries and to communicate God's grace (baraka) to their clients. This implicit belief was in uncomfortable tension with Islam as understood by educated Moroccans and many townsmen."
25. Vignet-Zunz, "Montagne et société," 64.
26. Shorafa (sing. sharif) claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad and are believed to be endowed with divine blessing (or baraka).
27. Community compensation includes (a) shart, or annual contracts for the services of the fqih to the community, e.g., teaching, calling to prayer (muezzin), leading prayer, and arbitrating; (b) lodging at the local mosque or an annex; (c) meals provided on a rotating basis by students' families; (d) payment of a share of the proceeds from the collective land (which varies with overall agricultural production); (e) a small weekly cash or in-kind contribution brought by children each Friday; and (f) fees received for attending to religious rites and ceremonies, e.g., marriages, circumcisions, and funerals.
28. This is the case, e.g., for the 1993 study of some 600 schools selected from across seven regions undertaken jointly by UNICEF and the MOE. The term préscolaire coranique is used in the study in reference to all Qur'anic schools, including the traditional community schools as defined above. Although differences between modern and traditional kuttab are briefly described, no distinction is made between the two in the collection of data, and findings are presented only in terms of urban/rural differences. See MOE/UNICEF, Etude évaluative des actions du ministère de l'education nationale pour le développement du préscolaire coranique (Rabat: MOE/UNICEF, 1993).
29. The provincial Office of Preschool Education collects data annually on the number of modern and traditional kuttab, teachers, and students enrolled in the province of Chefchaouen. Although the data are said to be based on systematic on-site visits to all communes within the province conducted during a 4-week period each autumn by a team of 10-15 inspectors, the reliability of the data collected through this mechanism is questioned by the MOE regional planning department. Moreover, interviews with preschool inspectors confirmed that the figures they reported were often gross approximations, because it is extremely difficult and time consuming to visit schools in many remote douars, or villages.
30. Attilio Gaudio, Maroc du nord: Cités andalouses et montagnes berbères (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1983).
31. Moroccan Household Living Standards Measurement Survey, 1990-91.
32. Bouthaina Azami-Tawil and Sobhi Tawil, "Les disparités régionales dans l'enseignement primaire au Maroc et le rôle de l'education traditionnelle" (master's thesis, University of Geneva, 1988).
33. Ali Amahan, "Dix ans d'evolution dans un village du Haut-Atlas," Bulletin Economique et Social du Maroc 159-61 (1987).
34. Based on field observations conducted in the province of Chefchaouen during the period 1995-97.
35. The sparse residential patterns observed in the province of Chefchaouen pose genuine challenges in terms of educational planning and the provision of primary schooling in view of ensuring access for all children. In Chefchaouen, as in rural Morocco more generally, the strategy has been to bring small schools as close as possible to children's homes, rather than build schooling centers for multiple villages with accessory services, e.g., school canteens, dormitories, and so forth. The strategy of building many small schools, particularly, is affected by the cost of land.
36. The growth of employment opportunities related to the production of cannabis affects more particularly on the education of girls who are often reputed to be more efficient for tasks related to the tilling of the land, irrigation, and the separation of male and female plants. For both boys and girls, the opportunity cost of schooling rises sharply as opportunities to earn up to DH 100/day (or some $10 per day) working in the range of activities related to the production of kif also increase. Such incomes are highly competitive when compared to incomes that school graduates may hope to earn should they be able to secure employment, e.g., as lower-level civil servants.
37. Cherifa Alaoui, "Obstacles à la scolarisation des filles en milieu rural," in Femmes et education: Etal des lieux, ed. Cherifa Alaoui et al. (Casablanca: Editions le Fennec, 1994), 91-92.
38. Interviewee quoted in Alaoui, "Obstacles à la scolarisation des filles en milieu rural," 91.
39. See Ahmed Zouggari, "L'école en milieu rural," Bulletin Economique et Social du Maroc 159-61 (1987).
40. L'école en milieu rural (Rabat: El Maarif al Jadida, 1996).
41. Ahmed Zouggari, "Le taleb dans le village: Etude de cas de Ounien" (paper presented at the World Archeological Congress, Southhampton and London, September 1-7, 1986), 8-9.
42. M. Echhab, "L'école et la société en milieu rural au Maroc" (PhD diss., University René Descartes, 1981), 109.
43. Eickelman, Knowledge and Power in Morocco, 59.
44. V. Lavy, J. Spratt, and N. Leboucher, "Changing Patterns of Illiteracy in Morocco: Assessment Methods Compared," Living Standards Measurement Survey Working Paper no. 115 (World Bank, Washington, DC, 1995).
45. Echhab, "L'école et la société en milieu rural au Maroc," 114.
46. Gaudio, Maroc du nord, 99. Resistance to the establishment and spread of primary schooling documented in the course of the development of the national school system within northern Morocco reflects the type of educational and cultural resistance that was often encountered in the colonial period. In referring to the period of Spanish occupation of Chefchaouen, Gaudio notes that a number of families obstinately refused to send their children to primary schools.
47. Mezzine, "Jihad au pays Jbala," 64.
48. Vignet-Zunz, "Montagne et société," 151.
49. A concern expressed by the head of the planning department at the regional delegation of the Ministry of Education in Chefchaouen. The preoccupation with the continued social treatment of biological life cycles of birth and death according to local custom and tradition are curiously similar to the protest expressed by segments of rural Turkish society during the 1940s in reaction to the violent modernization of Kemalist Turkey and the 20-year ban on religious training centers in the Turkish countryside. See F. Rahman, Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 92.
50. Once a local community has prepared and proposed a locale for primary schooling, the MOE will deploy a teacher. As a result of these efforts, regional Ministry of Education officials report that all rural douars that have thus far been unserved by a primary school now appear to be covered.
51. J. Ketterer, "Networks of Discontent in Northern Morocco: Drugs, Opposition, and Urban Unrest," Middle East Report 218 (Spring 2001).
52. UNODC/APDN, Morocco Cannabis Survey.