Arabisation in the Moroccan EducationalSystem: Problems and Prospects

Rabia RedouaneThe Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto,Canada M5S 1V6

Morocco, like other countries, faces large national problems. The national languagequestion is one of the most important because it is central to national unity. Recently,the Moroccan government has devoted considerable effort to crafting a careful andelaborate multi-sector language policy, with particular significance for the educationalsystem, which aims at promoting Arabic as the language of literacy and wider commu-nication. The paper examines the background to the new policy and its implications.

The Moroccan Linguistic SituationLocated at the crossroads of Greater Maghreb (Algeria, Libya and Tunisia),

Europe, and the rest of the African continent, Morocco has, throughout its history,been the target of repeated invasions and conquests by Greeks, Phonecians,Arabs, and more recently Western Europeans. All these civilisations have deeplyinfluenced Morocco and contributed to its linguistic and cultural diversity toproduce what is today a complex, multilingual profile.

Although little is known about the language demography prior to the comingof Islam in the seventh century, at least three languages were in use. First, Berber,the language native to the majority of the population, was used in the interior.Second, Latin was the language of administration, and later became restricted toliturgical usage until it was replaced by Arabic (Hammoud, 1982: 19). Third, ahybrid combination of Greek, Latin and Semitic elements was evolved inCarthage (Khalafallah, 1960: 568).

Today, two native languages, Berber and Arabic, and an internationallanguage of wider communication, French, are predominant in Morocco.

The native languages

Tamazight (Berber)Berber was the indigenous language spoken by the inhabitants of Morocco

before the Arab invasion. It belongs to the Hamito-Semitic group of languages(Brunot, 1950). In Morocco, as well as in other countries of North Africa, thepeople who speak Berber call themselves Imazighen, in the singular Amazigh,which means ‘a free man’. The feminine complement Tamazight denotes thelanguage. Although the word Tamazight is usually used to designate a singlelanguage, in fact, the word covers a number of widely different dialects whichare not entirely mutually comprehensible. In Morocco, Tamazight is used inreference to a particular variety of Berber, of which there are three dialects: Tarifitspoken in the Rif mountains of Northern Morocco; Tashlehait spoken in the South

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West of Morocco especially in the Souss Valley; and Tamazight spoken in theMiddle Atlas and the eastern half of the high Atlas mountains (Bentahila, 1983: 1).

ArabicArabic was introduced to Morocco in the seventh century. Two varieties of

Arabic are used, as in other Arab countries — Classical Arabic or its modernversion, Standard Arabic, and Moroccan Arabic. The two varieties of Arabic canbe said to stand in a diglossic relationship (Ferguson, 1959), that is two varietiesof the same language existing side by side, each enjoying a particular status andfulfilling different sociolinguistic functions. Classical Arabic, having a writtenform, is the official language. It is learned only in a formal educational context.Moroccan Arabic, on the other hand, is acquired by most Moroccans as theirmother tongue. It is the language of everyday conversation and folkloricliterature which is transmitted orally.

Thus, before the French colonisation, Morocco’s language situation wasalready complex, with the coexistence of Tamazight and the two varieties ofArabic. Of these languages, Classical Arabic was the language of the traditionaleducation system. This too will be later considered with reference to the differenteducational systems that existed before independence.

The foreign languagesOf the several foreign languages that have had an influence in Morocco,

French, which was introduced in 1912 through colonisation, is by far the mostdominant. Even though Spanish once played an important role in NorthernMorocco throughout the Spanish occupation, ‘it is now only marginally used bythe local population’ (Hammoud, 1982: 28). Other languages, such as English andGerman are more commonly taught as foreign languages in the public andprivate schools.

The Pre-independence Educational PolicyDuring the French occupation, the traditional and the modern educational

systems coexisted. They were in direct opposition to each other and continue asa contemporary source of conflict between the Arabo-Islamic tradition (mediatedthrough Arabic literacy) and Western culture (mediated through Frenchmonolingualism or Arabic-French bilingualism).

Arabic schoolsThe traditional system was well established before the French Protectorate,

and still exists today in a slightly different form. It is a three tier system operatingin Classical Arabic, comprising the Koranic primary schools, known as masjid orjama, where students are taught to read and write and memorise the Koran at ayoung age. More recently, other subjects such as arithmetic and language artshave been added to the curriculum as a result of the ‘1968 reform of Koranicschools, endorsed by King Hassan II, to alleviate overcrowding in regular publicprimary schools’ (Hammoud, 1982: 34).

The second tier comprises the Koranic secondary schools known as madrasa or

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zaouia. Madrassa, which means ‘school’, often located in the city. Zaouia is its ruralequivalent.

The curriculum in these institutions includes Arabic language and literaturecourses, some arithmetic, and introductory courses in theology, Islamiclaw, and Koranic interpretation (Hammoud, 1982: 34).

The third tier is the Islamic university, such as the University of Karaouine,which typically offers a more versatile education. The curriculum includes avariety of subjects such as philology, philosophy, biology, and mathematics. Boththe primary schools and universities still exist today in their original form, butsecondary schools have now been integrated into a modern system.

French schoolsThe modern system of education introduced alongside the traditional

Moroccan system was based on the one that existed in France. This modernsystem contained three kinds of school: (European schools, Franco-Islamicschools, and Free schools). The first two types are part of the public sector andthe last one remains private.

The European schools were reserved mainly for children of the colonisingFrench community, with curricula identical to those used in France. OnlyMoroccan children from the elite upper class were admitted to these schools. TheEuropean system is comprised of the three cycles of primary, secondary, andhigher education. Primary education is a five-year cycle. Secondary educationspans seven years, subdivided into two cycles (first and second).

The second type of school was the Franco-Islamic schools, of which there wereseveral types based on the social class of the students’ parents. The ‘écoles des filsde notables’ were primary schools in urban areas, reserved for a limited numberof upper class children. The ‘écoles rurales’ were for country children. Only alimited number of students from both types of schools were allowed to go on tosecondary school.

In addition to these two types of public school, the modern system comprisesseveral private ‘free schools’, many of which are now under government control.

In all these three types of school, French was instituted as the language ofinstruction, and Classical Arabic as a ‘foreign language’.

According to Ezzaki and Wagner (1992), the French colonisers ‘pursued apolicy based on what they perceived to be their mission civilisatrice’ (p. 216) —spreading their language and values by educating Moroccans to believe in theuniversality and superiority of the French culture and language, which they thenimposed in the cities and certain selected rural areas as ‘the only language ofcivilisation and advancement’ (Bourhis, 1982: 14). The elite were encouraged toreject everything that belonged to their own culture and to substitute Frenchmores. The colonisers strategy was best summed up by Gordon (1962) who notedthat:

When the Portuguese colonized, they built churches; when the Britishcolonized, they built trading stations; when the French colonize, they buildschools (p. 7).

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Moreover, the French educational policy weakened the status of ClassicalArabic (the perceived symbol of national and cultural identity) by promoting theBerber dialects and the Arabic vernaculars through formal teaching, and byclosing Arabic (Koranic) schools in Berber-speaking regions. This was donethrough the Dahir Berbere (Berber Decree) of 1930 which created yet another typeof school, where Arabic was excluded and only French and Berber were taught.The aim was to prepare a new generation of Berbers integrated into the FrenchChristian culture instead of the Arabic Islamic one, and thereby erode the culturaland linguistic solidarity that existed between Arabs and Berbers, and intensifythe separation between the two ethnic groups. Thus, the French system ofeducation in Morocco before Independence was as Bentahila (1983) stated:

¼ a vehicle for the policy of divide-and-rule, designated to multiply thetypes of schools, to encourage the separation of Arabs and Berbers, and tocontrast sharply with the traditional Moroccan system of education withwhich it co-existed. (pp. 9–10)

‘Free schools’In the early 1920s, in reaction to this divide-and-rule policy, several individual

Moroccan nationalists defied the school system and the language allocation setup by the Protectorate. Discontented with the archaic type of educationdispensed in the age-old Koranic institutions, they set up private Islamic schoolsin the major cities called mada:ris al hurra or ‘free schools’ which offered a moderncurriculum using Arabic as the medium of instruction.

By providing a viable alternative to the French educational system, the ‘freeschools’ did more than simply maintain the Arabic language by promoting it as alanguage of modern knowledge. The ‘free schools’ also provided the Moroccannationalist movement with an important crucible for dissemination and growth. Theinsistence of the ‘free schools’ on using Classical Arabic as the medium of instructionin mathematics and the sciences reflected a strong desire to see it ultimately in useas a fully-fledged official, national language in Morocco, under the colonialadministration (Hammoud, 1982: 30–31). In the 1940s, the colonial administration,under pressure from the nationalists, designate commissions to improve educationand assess ways to introduce Arabic language and culture and Islamic studies intothe mainstream curriculum. (Hammoud, 1982: 31). After Independence, the cadrestrained in these free schools were to assume leadership positions and to make theprospects of Arabisation concrete and politically legitimate (Damis, 1970).

Current Language Planning in Morocco: ArabisationSince Morocco obtained its Independence in 1956, it has been a national

priority to decrease the amount of French used in Morocco and to promote Arabicas a component of national identity, and as the language of literacy and widercommunication. A basic objective has been to restore Morocco’s pre-colonialculture through a development of the national, culturally unique educationalsystem — one that provides ‘an education that is Moroccan in its thinking, Arabicin its language and Muslim in its spirit’ (King’s speech from the throne, 1958, asquoted by Zartman 1964, 155–56).

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ArabisationIn the early years following Independence, a consensus supported Arabisation

as one of the principal goals of educational policy. While widespread support forthis principle was politically inevitable, its implementation has proven anarduous process. For example, a politically charged and sustained debatedeveloped between the proponents of a modern and Westernised trend whofavour balanced bilingual education and the supporters of the Arabo-Islamicculture who advocate radical Arabisation. The pace and scope of Arabisation hasdepended largely on which of these groups has had more power in thegovernment at a given time. For this reason, the history of Arabising the schoolcurriculum has been marked by ambivalence and discontinuity.

The Arabisation process intensified ‘in the wake of political independence in1956, when the conservative Istiqlal Party, which played a major role in winningindependence, gained power and was faced with the task of national reconstruc-tion’ (Hammoud, 1982: 31). The Party’s position on language policy preferred areturn to old ideals and the reinstating of a national Arab-Islamic identity inMorocco. It was at first implemented sporadically, as teachers and funds wereavailable. During the second year of Independence, complete Arabisation of thefirst year of primary education was accomplished. A bilingual policy wasadopted for the remaining four years, during which students were given 15 hoursof Arabic instruction and 15 hours of French per week (progressing in later yearsto 20 hours a week of Arabic and only 10 of French) and where elementary naturalscience and arithmetic were taught through the medium of Arabic.

ProblemsBut Arabisation was halted in the mid-sixties, and put on a back burner until

the 1970s. By the end of 1990–1991, Arabisation was completed for all primaryand secondary levels in the state schools. Alongside the state schools, however,there are private schools. These include the original schools created by theNationalists during the Protectorate, which have now adapted their programmesto correspond to those of the state schools. The other private European schoolswhich have ben preserved are now organised by the Mission UniversitaireCulturelle Française. In these European schools, Arabic has been introduced intothe curricula, and is now taught as a foreign language.

But, the process of Arabisation has still not been fully completed. There areimportant areas of the education system, particularly in the domain of scienceand at the more advanced levels, where French continues as an importantmedium of instruction. Today, French still plays a big part in the socioeconomiclife of Morocco, because officials apprehend with fear that linguistic isolation,resulting from total Arabisation, would have a negative consequence on thecountry’s socioeconomic growth (Ennaji, 1988: 10). According to Hammoud(1982):

the convenient long-term reliance on French as an advanced language ofwider communication and a medium facilitating access to the modernworld of science and technology has made Arabisation harder and harderto achieve. (p. 228)

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Laroui, a Moroccan historian (1973), adds that no significant changes wouldhappen, until the social, economic, and political foundations made Frenchlanguage education inappropriate for the real life of the country (Laroui, 1973).But complete dependence on French is not the only factor that has madeArabisation harder to achieve. Many claimed that there are other factors whichhave been considered a hindrance to successful Arabisation. Some of these willnow be examined

Major Factors Delaying the Implementation of ArabisationLaroui (1973), Hammoud (1982), Bentahila (1983), El-Biad (1985), and Ennaji

(1988) have argued that inconsistencies in policy, inadequacy in planning by theministry of education, as well as lack of coordination among the offices and publicadministrations have been the biggest problems for efficient language planningin education. Hammoud (1982) found that:

one of the setbacks Arabisation has suffered is a remarkable lack ofconsistency and continuity in its execution. It has been at the mercy ofchanging ministers and coalitions until pronouncements were made aboutit by the king. (p. 229)

The fact that policies tend to come direct from the ministry, without referenceto any independent sources of expertise is also considered to be another factor(Hammoud, 1982; Bentahila, 1983). Little effort seems to have been made to carryout any objective assessments of the implications of change, and plans often seemmotivated by political considerations rather than concern for educational values.Also little effort seems to have been made to consult ordinary, non-politicalMoroccans for their views on Arabisation, or professional educators andspecialists in areas such as education, sociology, etc. who have a workingknowledge of the system .

Attitudes to ArabisationBoth Bentahila (1983, 1987) and Ennaji (1988) argued that the problems

Arabisation has been encountering are also attributable to contradictory attitudesheld among policy makers and ordinary Moroccans. Some Moroccans hold afavourable attitude toward Arabisation, feeling that using Arabic is somehowthe right thing to do, and that there is an obligation for them to uphold the valueof Arabic. These people are inspired mainly by political and ideological motives.They feel strongly that the use of French in Morocco is a scar left by colonisation,a source of conflict and confusion, and that the country can only re-establish itsauthentic identity by operating solely in Arabic. Others, mostly bilingualMoroccans, may value the principles underlying Arabisation, but, for practicalpurposes, want French to remain in use. These people are in favour of bilingualeducation in two languages (French and Arabic).

Within these two groups of Moroccans, individuals do not always maintain aconsistent attitude towards Arabisation. To illustrate this point, there aremembers of the elite, many of them directly involved in decisions to promoteArabisation, who nevertheless send their own children to French schools, whilepreaching Arabisation as best for the masses. While such people may publicly

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express support for the teaching of traditional culture in schools, they are at thesame time reluctant to abandon the advantages of knowledge of French languageand culture for their own children.

Bentahila (1983) came up with four groups who have contradictory attitudestowards Arabisation: First the Traditionalists whose aim is to maintain the Arabiclanguage and to protect the cultural heritage of Morocco. Second, the Modernistswho are less involved with Arabisation because their main concern is to securean efficient education which would make Moroccans disposed to a modernworld. Third the Nationalists whose attitudes towards Arabisation are connectedwith ideas of defending their country and who consider Arabisation as a politicaland post-colonial problem rather than a cultural and economic one. Fourth theBureaucrats who acknowledge the importance of Arabisation but are

also aware of the problems it involves. For them, replacing French totally byArabic is not a feasible and practical proposal (Bentahila, 1983: 123–4).

Linguistic factorsApart from these practical factors, many have considered a further source of

problems, this being the nature of Arabic itself: the coexistence of two divergentvarieties: Standard Arabic, the written language which is learnt in school, andthe unwritten colloquial variety which is the mother tongue. The Arabisationprocess may heighten the problems which are posed by the coexistence of thesetwo varieties and the need to determine which should be used for what purpose.Many students of this problem feel that Standard Arabic should be used as thevehicle for Arabisation, and that this form can most readily substitute for French.Two main reasons offered are: first, the status of Standard Arabic as the mediumfor religious matters, and the fact that it is the language in which the culturalheritage of Moroccans is maintained; and second, Standard Arabic is judgedfundamental to the cultural unity of the Arabs because, unlike the dialects, itallows Arabs from different countries to communicate and understand eachother.

But nevertheless, Standard Arabic is not the students’ native language, andthe extent to which it is different from the Moroccan dialect that children areexposed to and learn before they go to school must not be under-estimated; itmust be taught through formal education, with the same rigour as French or anyforeign language (Bentahila, 1983: 129). So, in some respects, replacing Frenchwith Standard Arabic simply substitutes one non-native language for another;albeit with a net gain in terms of Arabic culture. Gains notwithstanding, teachersstill find it necessary to resort to vernaculars in teaching and explaining StandardArabic to students.

Of equal importance is the impoverishment of Arabic. Lakhdar-Ghazal (1976),former director of the Institute for Arabisation in Rabat, dealt extensively with thesubject and asked for ‘a methodical Arabization with prior linguistic simplificationand elaboration’. He investigated problems of corpus planning and examinedforeign lexical borrowings into Modern Standard Arabic (Saad, 1994: 50). Accordingto him ‘Classical arabic is backwards compared to French and that its lexicon ispoor and sometimes inaccurate’ (quoted by Ennaji, 1988: 12).

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Possible solutionsIn the remaining pages of this paper I will suggest some steps towards the

resolution of these issues with respect to the nature of Arabic, and theachievement of successful Arabisation.

Providing competent teachers in Arabic and suitably trained ones who couldwork through the medium of Arabic would help achieve an effective Arabisation.This latter must begin with the preparation of competent teaching staff, so thatthe teaching of a subject in Arabic can continue throughout the system. Beforemaking use of Arabisation at the lower levels, it would seem reasonable to makesure that enough teachers at the higher levels are given timely preparation. Thiswould avoid the problem of Arabised students who, upon attaining a moreadvanced level in their education, do not find qualified teachers to teach them inthe language in which they have up to now continued their studies, and whoseadvancement now necessitates mastery of a second language!

Upgrading methodology for teaching Standard Arabic in the schools wouldbe another worthwhile step for successful implementation of the Arabisationpolicy. Most Arabic textbooks that have been used to teach Arabic are mainlybased on written materials. Most texts tend to deal with the distant past, ratherthan daily life situation. Moreover, they do not reflect the modern world(Ibaaquil, 1978). The content is grammatically-based, not contextualised, andteachers use excessive translation and pattern practice techniques. This has madeteaching Arabic a difficult task for teachers and a boring subject for students.Teaching Arabic should introduce textbooks that deal with everyday lifesituations. Teachers should be supplemented with interesting and authenticmaterials. Additionally, they should use communicative and integrated drillsand activities to make Arabic more attractive and lively.

Moreover, more attention should be paid to the way Arabic is presented to thestudents, since it is not their first acquired language, but it is formally taught inschool. We believe an alternative approach to the teaching of Arabic which isbased on the integration of the dialect in the classroom context would helpsmooth the transition from a bilingual education to a complete arabised one. Asignificant merit of this approach is that it takes advantage of the fact thatColloquial Arabic and Standard Arabic are varieties of the same language whichshare a number of linguistic features, and alleviates some of the problems facingthe students in learning Standard Arabic. Teachers would alternate between thedialect and the Standard in instructing and explaining the language in order tofacilitate students’ understanding.

Last but not least, we should renovate Arabic and develop an adequateterminology compatible to the modern world. Lakhdar-Ghazal (1976) claims thatClassical Arabic is under-developed as a means of instruction and as aninstrument of communication with the external world. ‘For him, seriousArabisation should be gradual and should be preceded by a renovation ofclassical Arabic’ (Ennaji, 1988: 12). Many argue (Salmi, 1987; Zizi, 1984) that wordformation processes of Arabic are not the only source of the problems indeveloping an appropriate terminology. Attitudes to the language are also toblame. People feel that Arabic should remain unaltered and kept safe from anyforeign interference. As it is characterised as a privileged and sacred language, it

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is very difficult for people to accept the kind of change which are normal in theevolution of other languages. Borrowings can be seen as a threat to the status ofArabic (Bentahila, 1987).

ConclusionSo how, in a word, can an effective Arabisation be achieved? I have argued

that the nature of Arabic itself is at the root of the problem, and that a solutionlies in improving Arabic. The kind of Arabisation that I am advocating would beable to function in a lively modern Standard Arabic.

AcknowledgementsI am indebted to Professor Ian McDougall for his valuable comments on the

English usage. Needless to say, the author is solely responsible for anyinadequacy of English and any error at any point.

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