Morocco: Earthquake-hit villages resume classes in tents, but girls' education might be at risk

When the powerful earthquake rumbled through the villages of the Moroccan Atlas mountains, hundreds of schools crumbled. This week, classes resumed in tents, but the lack of boarding schools may put girls' education at risk, say locals.

In Amizmiz, 55 kilometres from Marrakech, Farabi High School students resumed their education today, 19 September. This time, in equipped tents set inside the severely damaged institution.

The tents were set up in coordination between the Ministry of Education, the local authorities and the Royal Armed Forces, according to state news agency SNRT.

"The focus of these classes will be on the psychological aspect of helping the students overcome the shock of the earthquake and losing members of their families," Hassan, a teacher in the area, remarked to The New Arab.

Farabi, like many high schools in the Moroccan remote areas, hosts dozens of students, many of whom come from faraway villages. 

While the Ministry of Education has, more or less, managed to build over the past decades primary schools in the remotest areas of the Kingdom, adolescents still have to travel for hours to reach high schools.

Over the past years, the outlying high schools pushed many worried parents to put their kids, mostly daughters, out of school.

"Of course, I want my daughter to study and become a doctor or engineer, but sending a 15-year-old girl by herself is difficult for every father. The world is not safe," said Rachid, a resident of Aghbar village, to TNA.

Last year, when Rachid heard about Dar Attaliba, "house of students," a girls' boarding school three hours away from the mountain village, Rachid, who "believes in the power of education," decided to send her daughter Lamia despite all the odds.

However, today, Dar Al-Taliba in Talat N'Yaaqoub lies in ruins behind what became a small military base for local and foreign rescue aid.

Over 500 educational institutions and 55 boarding schools were damaged by the 8 September earthquake, mainly in the provinces of Al Haouz, Chichaoua, and Taroudant.

"I don't know what will we do," said Lamia. "I came a long way. I don't want to quit school now." 

In 2000, the state Mohamed V Foundation launched the Dar Al-Taliba program to curb school dropout among girls in rural areas. 

In collaboration with the Education Ministry and local NGOs, over 6,000 female students benefited from the program in 2021.

Education rates for women in Morocco have slowly risen over the past two decades, but as of 2018, 64% of girls were in secondary school, according to the World Bank.

Meanwhile, fewer than half of the women in Morocco recorded in the most recent figures from 2021 received a tertiary education.

"This quake put all that we fought for in ruins. It took us decades of struggle to have schools. And with the pace at which officials are moving now, it seems we will have to wait more decades to get proper education," Kholoud, a 32-year-old woman graduate who once lived in the remote village of Aghbar. 

Most Atlas Mountains villages, dubbed "the forgotten Morocco," have long been deprived of basic infrastructure like hospitals and schools. Many of the remotest villages tucked high into the mountain peaks can be reached only on foot or using donkeys.