Ministry of Higher Education moves towards proposing a new proposal to end the medical colleges crisis

Agadir24

The crisis between medical and pharmacy students in Morocco on the one hand, and the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation on the other hand, continues, about a week before the start of the new academic year 2024/2025.

According to an informed source, the ministry is trying to put forward a new proposal to end the crisis, which is to hold new dialogue sessions, attended by parliamentarians as mediators, along with the students’ parents, in order to discuss ways to end this crisis that has been ongoing for months.

The same source reported that “students who are clinging to their demands refuse to involve their parents in the dialogue sessions,” considering that “the Committee of Medical and Pharmacy Students in Morocco is the one responsible for representing them before the officials of the Ministry of Higher Education.”

For his part, a source from the National Committee for Medical and Pharmacy Students in Morocco stated that “in the event of sitting down to the negotiating table, the likely scenario is to hold the exams, which were previously boycotted, during the months of September and October 2024.”

The same source ruled out that the Ministry of Higher Education would issue a decision to fail students who boycotted last season’s exams, especially since Moroccan medical and pharmacy colleges do not have the capabilities or capacity necessary to teach two batches together in one year.

The same source noted that “overcoming this crisis depends on signing a memorandum of agreement that includes all the students’ demands, represented by accepting the main demand related to exempting the current five batches from the decision to reduce the years of study and to be satisfied with implementing it starting next year after restructuring the new 4+2 system, cancelling suspensions against student representatives, cancelling the zero point and ensuring passing exams in both regular and remedial sessions in both semesters.”

A large number of medical and pharmacy students failed to take the second semester exams for the current academic year (regular session), which the Ministry of Higher Education had scheduled to start on Wednesday, June 26, 2024.

On Monday, July 22, 2024, medical and pharmacy students continued their boycott of the spring semester exams. After boycotting the regular semester exams, they agreed to boycott the remedial semester exams as well.