Tension has been rising for several weeks in Rabat, where students from the faculty of medicine and pharmacy are standing up to the government despite strong police repression, notes the Moroccan news site L’Opinion.
On September 25, the demonstrators were dispersed by force and several students were arrested while demanding, among other things, “the revocation of the new duration of studies, reduced to six years instead of seven”. They consider this reform, which they have been contesting for several months, as a direct threat to the quality of medical education.
A reform from above
The measure was imposed by the government. It is part of a “reform of the training course” initiated by the executive, which aims, according to L’Opinion, has “remedy, even if only relatively, the enormous and unsustainable deficit [du nombre] of doctors”.
There is a shortage of 32,000 doctors in Morocco, according to the information site. The government would like to increase their workforce by 20% to come closer to the standards in terms of the number of medical professionals per capita of the World Health Organization. Students, who are already complaining about constantly deteriorating training conditions
