Moroccan Taxi Drivers Race Against Time to Learn English for 2030 World Cup

One of the difficulties is the learning schedule. The schedules for the English training sessions "take place during peak hours," lamented Aziz Maazouz, a second-category taxi driver in Rabat. Other drivers in the capital and he are beneficiaries of an initiative by a local association to learn English before the 2030 World Cup. According to Maazouz, the obstacles suggest the failure of this ambition. The weekly sessions take place in the afternoon, which corresponds to a period of high traffic for professionals, he added, calling to "move the classes to the evening." He supports his words by saying: "The evening period would be more effective for all professionals, rather than risking losing peak hours and a significant portion of the daily income."

The other obstacle related to the learning of English by taxi drivers is the "overcrowding of the classes." According to Maazouz, only one room is allocated to a large number of professionals per session. "This makes it difficult to follow the content of the sessions," he said, calling for the opening of additional rooms to accommodate the large number of professionals, and for the intervention of the Ministry of the Interior to provide support for these crucial educational initiatives, by virtue of its responsibility.

The Road Transport Trade Union affiliated with the Moroccan Labor Union is behind one of the initiatives. It has encouraged English teachers to volunteer to teach professionals in preparation for the 2030 World Cup. "This volunteer initiative is not sustainable, as teachers need motivations to ensure the success of this training, which means the challenge could fail," said the union president, lamenting the lack of support from the Ministry of the Interior to support the professionals’ ambition to learn English in the city of Casablanca.

Faced with these difficulties, the latter called on the Ministry of the Interior to intervene to support the training of professionals in the English language.