French schools in Morocco: France’s disengagement causes parents’ bills to explode

At the Guy de Maupassant high school in Casablanca, the tug-of-war is underway between the IEG group and the APEMA parents’ association. Families are denouncing the breach of a 2018 agreement that capped increases at 10% over three years. By moving to a system of annual increases without consultation, the institution is accused of favoring an accounting logic to the detriment of the financial stability of households. The management justifies these adjustments by investment needs, but the lack of visibility on future tariffs fuels the anger of parents.

In the directly managed institutions, tuition fees now cover the pensions of expatriate teachers without these funds being reinvested locally. In Rabat, the reconstruction project of the Saint-Exupéry middle school illustrates these tensions: the budget has tripled in ten years to reach 18 million euros, a sum largely financed by parents. Pending the start of the work, the students remain enrolled in temporary premises deemed unsuitable, while the sums collected are paid to the French Treasury.

This financial pressure coincides with a deterioration of the educational offer. Between the elimination of options, the closure of classes and class sizes exceeding 28 students, the network loses about 3% of its enrollments each year. Parents deplore unfilled absences and repeated strikes, believing that the bond of trust has been broken. For many families, France’s financial withdrawal leaves them alone to bear the management errors of a school model that has become increasingly costly.