On Monday 24 December 2018, Moroccan Prime Minister Dr. Saad Eddin Al-Othmani chaired a meeting of the Steering Committee of the program “Generalization of the use of Information and Communication Technology in Education” known by its French acronym GENIE. The objective of the meeting was to review the outcomes of the program since its launch in 2006 and outline a road map for future actions taking into account the 2015-2030 vision for education, training and scientific research.
The meeting was attended by the Minister of National Education, Vocational Training, Higher Education and Scientific Research, the Minister of Industry, Investment, Trade and Digital Economy, the Director General of the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT), the Vice Director of the Agency for Digital Development in addition to representatives from concerned sectors.
In his inaugural address, the Prime Minister highlighted some of the program’s major achievements. For instance, 9000 institutions were equipped with the necessary multimedia infrastructure and were connected to Internet, covering 87% of the total number of institutions targeted by the program. 260,000 staff were trained in ICT usage in education. In addition to the establishment of the National Observatory for Information and Communication Technologies in Education and the creation of the National Digital Resource Laboratory, which monitor and manage the production and acquisition of digital pedagogic resources.
The GENIE program is built on three major pillars:
- ICT infrastructure & equipment: Installation of Internet-connected multimedia environments;
- Teachers’ and school administrators’ training: provision of several training modules inspectors, principals and teachers;
- Digital resources and curriculum development: installation of a national laboratory for the development of educational content and the creation of two online portals:
- taalimtice.ma: which provides digital resources classified according to curriculum subjects.
- soutiensco.men.gov.ma : a portal for academic support and e-learning.
Both the Prime Minister and the Education Minister stressed the importance of integrating information and communication technologies into the curricula and urged all parties to work towards achieving the target goal of equipping all schools with computers and internet connection by 2021. At the end of this meeting, the Committee endorsed the 2030 vision and adopted an outline of actions for the period 2019-2021.