Morocco Ranks Last in Global Student Reading Assessment, Study Finds

With an average score of Moroccan students of 372 points, far from the international average set at 500 points, Morocco ranks 56th out of 57 participating countries or economies in PIRLS 2021. "Morocco participated in this session with representative samples from all regions of the Kingdom, comprising a total of 7,017 students from the fourth level of primary education, 7,017 parents and guardians, and 266 Arabic teachers representing 266 primary schools," the Ministry of National Education, Preschool and Sports said in a statement.

"Although a slight improvement was observed in the 2021 session, with a positive difference of 15 points and 47 points compared to the previous 2016 and 2011 sessions respectively, the overall performance of Moroccan students remains well below the desired performance. The results show that 59% of students are below the minimum level of reading proficiency," notes the department of Chakib Benmoussa, adding that "these results reinforce the various national and international diagnoses that have revealed the learning crisis facing our education system, and support the need for the transparency and accountability approach adopted by the Ministry of National Education, Preschool and Sports within the framework of the 2022-2026 Roadmap."

Morocco has been participating in this study since its first edition in 2001. Conducted by the IEA every five years in about sixty countries, this study aims to assess the performance of education systems internationally in the field of mastering reading skills of students in the language taught in primary school, as well as to scrutinize the intersections of the performance of participating countries with a number of explanatory variables to find the necessary basis for developing policies to develop these skills.