French schools in Morocco: Anger rises in the face of soaring school fees

Far from being a simple inflationary correction, the rise in fees in the establishments under the direct management of the Rabat-Kénitra hub is part of a long-term financial strategy. According to internal documents consulted by Challenge, fees have jumped by nearly 30% since 2017 and should continue to grow mechanically by 4% per year until 2029. This trajectory, described as "structural, continuous and assumed" by the administration, marks a turning point for a system that seems to be abandoning its vocation of diplomatic public service for a logic of profitability, placing the bulk of the financial risk on the parents.

On Bladi.net: French schools in Morocco: the rise in fees explodes from the next school year

The revolt of the families is particularly focused on the project to rebuild the Saint-Exupéry middle school in Rabat, whose budget has exploded in a spectacular way. Initially estimated at 65 million dirhams, the cost of the construction site has tripled to reach 18 million euros, an unprecedented ratio per square meter for the sector. While nearly 10 million euros have already been collected through successive fee increases, no building permit has yet been issued, fueling a sense of opacity and the impression for users of financing "a project that does not yet exist".

On Bladi.net: French schools in Morocco: the start of the anger in the face of the explosion of fees

This tightening of fees is all the more unacceptable as it is accompanied, according to testimonies, by a perceptible deterioration in the quality of education. Parents point to increasing absenteeism, non-replacements and the elimination of options, creating an unsustainable scissor effect between the cost and the service provided. Furthermore, the transfer of the financing of the pensions of seconded personnel to local families is perceived as a breach of the moral contract, transforming education into a source of anxiety where "each school year is experienced as an ordeal" for households, forced to make painful financial trade-offs.

Faced with this dynamic, French education, once praised for its excellence and relative social diversity, risks becoming a selective system based on money. The current unrest goes beyond a simple accounting claim to question the sustainability of a model where the school is now managed as a profit center that must secure its cash flows, at the risk of breaking the historic bond of trust that united it with Moroccan and foreign families.