“Our French educational establishments abroad are a pillar of our diplomacy of influence”, tweeted on July 3 Catherine Colonna, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs at the end of the interministerial orientation council of the French education abroad. The statement echoes the objective, set by Emmanuel Macron in March 2018, of doubling the number of students enrolled in French schools abroad by 2030. But, with 390,000 students in 2022, an increase of 8% in five years, the presidential announcement did not produce the expected result. “The intention was laudable, but the means are not there, regrets Nicolas Arnulf, councilor elected in Rabat for the North Africa constituency at the Assembly of French people living abroad. To develop without spending more, the network has no choice but to resort to private educational groups, as in Morocco. »
Since 2018, the annual subsidy allocated by the State to French educational establishments around the world has increased by 10%, reaching 420 million euros in 2022. In Morocco, this aid amounts to 46 million euros, an amount that has not changed for five years. However, the kingdom is home to the second largest French education network in the world, after Lebanon.
In 2022, it educated more than 48,000 students, 30% more than in 2018. Distributed in the main cities of the country, its 42 schools include two types of establishments approved by the Ministry of National Education. Those “directly managed” are decentralized services of the Agency for French Education Abroad (AEFE), under the supervision of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, with a budget aggregated with that of the operator audience. The “partners” do not receive any money from the state. Trained by private entities, they benefit from management autonomy, recruit their staff and are completely free to set the amount of tuition fees. The latter welcomed 56% of the students in the network this year.
“We are no longer in a mission of service”
“The establishments under direct management form the backbone of the network because they provide teacher trainers seconded to partner schools and carry the public policy of French education abroad. But for lack of support for their development, these establishments welcome a smaller portion of new students from the network, explains Karim Ben Cheikh, deputy (Ecologistes-Nupes) of the 9th district of French people living outside France and rapporteur for the budget of cultural diplomacy and of influence. By freezing their development and relying on for-profit establishments to meet demand, the message conveyed by the government is that education is a market. »
In Morocco, these partner establishments belong to a dozen private groups “solid enough not to risk bankruptcy”, specifies a French official. These are mainly the Moroccan United Arab Emirates Development Company (Somed), owned by the royal holding company Al-Mada and Emirati capital, International Education Group (IEG), an alliance between Saham, founded by the former – Minister of the Economy Moulay Hafid Elalamy, and a South African investment holding company, the General Education Holding (Holged), a Moroccan family group, or even Odyssey. The French group, chaired by Luc Chatel, Minister of Education under Nicolas Sarkozy, opened the French International School of Casablanca in 2017, with a loan of nearly 10 million euros, according to the magazine Challenges.
The establishment, upscale, requires for the next school year annual fees of 67,000 dirhams in high school (6,181 euros), against just over 42,000 dirhams in a directly managed establishment. “We are no longer in a service mission, but in an accounting logic with a need for rapid amortization of costs and a search for medium-term profitability”, notes Nicolas Arnulf. On the side of the AEFE, we note that the aid provided for each student enrolled in a directly managed establishment is around 2,000 euros per year. “Without it, the prices would be the same as in the partner establishments, we emphasize at the French Embassy, while insisting on the “very satisfactory baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate success” in these schools.
Teachers’ unions, however, denounce the “degraded” working conditions of staff working in partner establishments. “They are more concerned with satisfying parents than meeting educational requirements,” observes Emmanuelle Baglin, head of Morocco’s SNUipp-FSU, the main union for primary school teachers. Although the number of permanent seconded staff from the Ministry of National Education is still significant, many positions have been eliminated in recent years.
“Dead School”
Press release, sit-in, “dead school” day… Parents’ associations regularly protest against “budgetary austerity” and the increase in tuition fees in directly managed establishments. In ten years, they increased by 70% in middle school and 55% in high school. So much so that the income generated by family payments exceeds the annual aid granted by the AEFE. “French education in Morocco has existed for more than a century, families are attached to it, recognizes Moulay Driss El-Alaoui, deputy secretary general of the National Federation of Parents’ Councils in secular schools. But for many parents, sending a child to a French school is a sacrifice. »
For low-income families, support systems exist. But their amount – 105 million euros in 2022 – has been practically frozen for five years and only French or binational families can have access to it. However, Moroccan students, who are already subject to higher tuition fees, represent more than 70% of the network’s workforce. “If a family cannot pay the fees for the current year, the rule is that the child does not go to school the following year”, indicates an adviser to French people living abroad, deploring “an administration obsessed by accounting”. “I received a letter from school this year threatening to take my daughter out of school for an unpaid amount of 700 dirhams,” said Saida, who wishes to remain anonymous.
“We must stop appealing to families to raise funds,” insists Hélène Conway-Mouret, senator (Socialist, Ecologist and Republican group) of the French living outside France. In order to reduce the financial pressure on parents, elected officials and associations plan in particular to increase the share of turnover – 2% currently – donated to the AEFE by partner establishments under their approval. In 2022, this amounted to 875,000 euros. “It’s not much,” remarks Nicolas Arnulf. We could consider increasing it without jeopardizing the sustainability of these schools. Another avenue being considered is to allow directly managed institutions to borrow. “We are in a ludicrous situation where a partner school can take out a loan, but not a state-owned establishment, underlines Karim Ben Cheikh. To finance a renovation or an extension, the latter is obliged to accumulate cash over several years thanks to tuition fees. Result: it is the parents of students who pay for the housing stock of France. »
As for the development of the network via new schools, it is at a standstill. Apart from extension requests for establishments already approved, the Moroccan authorities have suspended since 2020 the issuance of approval to all foreign missions.