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34,859,364 (July 2009 est.)
Population age distribution:
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0-14 years: 30% (male 5,333,396/female 5,131,886) |
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15-64 years: 64.7% (male 11,261,139/female 11,305,792) |
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65 years and over: 5.2% (male 781,089/female 1,046,062) (2009 est.) |
The education system in Morocco is composed of pre-school, primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Government efforts to increase the availability of education services have led to better access at all levels of education. Morocco’s education system consists of six years of primary, three years of lower-middle/intermediate school, three years of upper secondary, and a tertiary education.
The education system in Morocco is run by the Ministry of National Education (MNE) and Ministry of Higher Education and Executive Training. Due to the average performance of the sector at all levels, since 1999 the MNE has encouraged decentralisation to give more autonomy to the regions.
Now there are Regional Academies (AREF) in each of the 16 administrative regions in Morocco, which are responsible for developing 30 per cent of the school curriculum, among other duties. The MNE will continue to manage the other 70 per cent.
Morocco's unemployment rate, long a cause for concern, has been dropping steadily, on the back of job growth in services and construction. Further institutional reforms to bolster competitiveness and financial openness are expected to help the trend to continue.
On the whole, the growth rate of the economy will not reduce the unemployment rate significantly, partly due to the constant rise in the number of new entrants into the labour market. The growth level of the last five years did, however, reduce urban unemployment from 22% in 1999 to 18.3% in 2005, and the national rate from 13.9% in 1999 to 10.8% in 2005.
According to the State High Planning Commission, Morocco's official unemployment rate dropped to 9.1% in Q2 2008, down from 9.6% in Q1. This leaves Morocco with some 1.03m unemployed, compared to 1.06m at the end of March 2008.
Urban areas saw particularly strong job growth, with the services and construction sectors acting as leading drivers of job creation. Services generated some 152,000 new jobs, with the business process outsourcing (BPO) and telecoms sector proving particularly dynamic.
Meanwhile, government infrastructure projects, as well as heavy private investment in real estate and tourism, helped boost the construction sector, which created 80,000 new jobs in the second quarter of 2008.
Evidently, this trend of falling unemployment rates is positive. Joblessness has long been a cause for serious concern in North Africa. Morocco has a lower rate than its Maghreb neighbors - Tunisia has a rate of around 13.9%, and in Algeria it is around 12.3% - but the issue is still pressing, both for economic and social reasons.
A 2006 government report suggested that the country needed a net increase of 400,000 jobs annually for the next two decades in order to provide enough employment for its people, given the underlying demographic dynamic.
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