Minister of National Education Saïd Amzazi and UNICEF representative in Morocco Giovanna Barberis officially launched, on Wednesday at Mejlaou Community School, the «Child to Child» operation. Launched in the presence of wali of the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region Mohamed Mhidia, this operation is part of the implementation of project n°4 of the 2015-2030 strategic vision, which touches on guaranteeing remedial education and improving the effectiveness of non-formal education, said a document from the Ministry. Organized in partnership with UNICEF and with the financial support of Canada, the purpose of the operation is to raise the awareness of external education actors, authorities and civil society, as well as students and families about non-schooling and school dropout, with the aim of finding adequate local solutions. The awareness raising program focuses on the dissemination and activation of the principle of compulsory schooling by ensuring that students who have dropped out of school return to their institutions, and the identification of a territorialized map to navigate programs for remedial education and non-formal education programs. This is a preventive approach to fight school dropout, and a curative approach that aims to give young people, who have never enrolled in school or those who have left it prematurely, a second chance at education and training, said Amzazi. The operation would ensure the participation of 7,721 primary schools and 1,977 secondary schools, and the training of 500,000 students in the sixth grade (primary school) and 400,000 in the first year of high school on the causes and consequences of dropping out of school, as well as polling techniques, he added. It will also enable to conduct a census of 70,000 out-of-school children, the re-enrollment of nearly 30,000 children in primary schools after taking upgrading classes, and the reintegration of 30,000 second chance children, said the Minister.
