Moroccan girls walk to school
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As part of a larger OECD effort, RAND Europe researchers analysed the strengths and challenges of Morocco's current approach for teacher appraisal and provided four actionable policy recommendations as well as advice for implementing improvements.
The recommendations include establishing a framework for teacher appraisal, ensuring that all new teachers demonstrate and develop teaching competencies, refocusing appraisals on professional learning, and redesigning appraisals to better manage and reward performance.
Morocco has made impressive progress in recent decades to expand access to school education. Yet high dropout rates and low levels of student performance remain key challenges. The availability of reliable performance information and the capacity to exploit it is critical so that Morocco can develop appropriate policies and practices to improve the quality of school education.
In June 2015, Morocco signed a two-year country programme agreement with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to support its national reform agenda. This programme included an OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment in Morocco which looks across the country's policies for evaluation and assessment in education. The review's analysis focused on the following components of evaluation:
The OECD commissioned RAND Europe to analyse the strengths and challenges in Morocco's current approach for teacher appraisal, and to provide actionable policy recommendations and advice for implementing improvements.
RAND Europe was responsible for drafting a chapter to be included in the overall OECD report. To inform the chapter, the research team used document review, administrative education data and international education data, international education reports, interviews with key stakeholders in Morocco and discussions with the OECD review team members.
The report as a whole highlights the progress that Morocco has achieved in increasing access to education, especially in rural areas, over the past decades. It underscores that much remains to be done to improve learning for all pupils and to provide them with a high quality education until the end of secondary school. The report offers concrete and actionable recommendations for the country to reinforce their education evaluation framework at all levels.
Morocco has recognised the importance of teaching for student learning and has set priorities for professionalising the teaching force as a key lever in raising educational quality, including reforming teacher appraisal. However, significant gaps in Morocco’s existing appraisal system mean that it is currently not influencing teaching practice as effectively as it could.
The challenging teaching context for many Moroccan teachers makes strengthening appraisal especially important. Classrooms can be multi-grade, very large, ability levels very diverse and parental engagement in learning activities at home is often very low. Teachers in rural schools, and especially in satellite schools, are often isolated.
The chapter makes the following specific recommendations:
