Moroccan ICT: Initiatives and projects

In March 2005, the Moroccan government adopted a strategy having as its main objective the hools and high schools) with Internet-connected multimedia rooms by 2008. Infrastructure, teacher training, and the development of pedagogical content are part of this national programme which the King officially launched on September 15, 2005. USAID supports this programme through the Last Mile Initiative, which provides multimedia centres in rural middle schools and teacher training in four regions of the country. The GENIE project is built around three complementary axes:
• ICT equipment:
GENIE plans to equip all Moroccan schools with computer labs with ADSL Internet access. It is estimated that 104,000 computers over three years (2005-2008), plus additional equipments like printers and scanners, will be provided. The management of GENIE is placed on a steering committee chaired by the prime minister. A project team was created to follow the implementation of GENIE programme.

• Teachers’ and school administrators’ training:

The training axis in the GENIE project is carried out in close collaboration with several international partners.

To implement the training components, regional computer labs have been set up in the 16 regional academies affiliated to the Ministry of Education. The components include:

1. Training in basic use of computers for 230,000 teachers and school administrator.
2. Training in the use of ICT as a pedagogical tool to more than 18,000 teachers
3. Training in maintenance to more than 700 technicians
4. Special training in school management

• Curriculum development:

The curriculum development axis includes installing a national laboratory for the development of educational content and installing a national educational portal. The portal will offer several services such as educational resources, discussion forums, e-mail addresses to all teachers, a virtual library, and educational search engines.

• Marwan Project:
Morocco Wide Area Network was launched in 1997 and activated in 2002. Its main objective is to ensure low-cost access to the Internet for Moroccan universities, to establish a network hosted within universities and administrated by dedicated staff, and to provide a scalable architecture and large bandwidth.