Morocco Considers Shift from French to English in Education Reform

The debate on abandoning French in favor of English comes back every eve of the school year. According to Said Bennis, academician and expert in social sciences, French "is not a school language and the transition to English is a functional necessity". In a statement to Hespress, he noted that countries like South Korea or Finland, which have successfully made this transition to English, "have experienced an important historical period called positive translation". During this period, "everything written in English is translated into the national or official language, and thanks to this translation, the official national language of the country becomes a school language after having been a taught language," he explained.

The expert then highlighted the "identity and functional" functions of language. "In Morocco, we are faced with the question of how to move from identity languages to functional languages," he added, stressing that Arabic and Amazigh are the identity and official languages of the kingdom, but "are not functional languages." Bennis expressed his surprise to see teaching mathematics, physics and chemistry in French in Morocco, when this language "is not a functional language, but an identity language" in France. "How is it that in its own country, it is an identity language and that it becomes a functional language for us?" he wondered.

According to him, the transition from French to English as the first foreign language in Moroccan schools and universities is imperative. The transition is "an urgent and pressing necessity, especially if we take into account the language policy of the French Republic with regard to the functional language for scientific research and the university, having chosen to anchor English as the language of scientific communication and writing at the national and international level," he commented, specifying that choosing English would increase "the competitiveness of the two official languages of the Kingdom of Morocco, Arabic and Amazigh, through a positive translation action [...] to prepare them to play functional roles".

Abdallah Yousfi, president of the Moroccan Association of English Teachers, for his part, said that the adoption of French as a foreign language in Morocco has a "colonial justification first, and a Francophone ideological one afterwards". According to him, the use of the Internet and social networks has contributed to strengthening the presence of English in the world. But the transition from French to English will not solve the problem of the quality of education in Morocco, he believes, stating that "the French language and culture will remain, even in the medium term, present in Moroccan society" and that English is seen as a "language to accompany scientific and technological development, communication and cultural, economic and diplomatic exchange".