hr. I. EducationolDrvelopmmr, Printed in Great Britain 0?38-0593/87 $3.00 + .ml Pergamon Journals Ltd. Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 21-31.1987 LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLING JAMIL IN MOROCCO SALMI Institute of Educational Planning, 29 rue Ouled Hariz, Rabat-Aviation, Morocco Abstract-The prevailing language situation in Morocco is quite complex due to the presence and interference of three Berber dialects, three variant forms of colloquial Arabic, two foreign languages (French and Spanish) and one national language, classical Arabic. This article seeks to examine the educational implications of this multilingualism. For this purpose, a three-step analysis is carried out, involving a summary presentation of the linguistic setting in Morocco, an outline of the language situation in the schooling system and an assessment of the pedagogical impact of these factors. Two main conclusions are reached on the basis of this analysis. First, it appears that the language policy constitutes a major source of wastage in educational terms. Second, there is a close relationship between socio-cultural origin and the vehicles of instruction used at school, which introduces an element of social bias in the educational process. The object in which power has become inscribed, in all human eternity, is: language. Rolind-Barthes leave the curious investigator in a state of total perplexity. What, then, are the educational implications of this complex language situation? While the present article is not concerned with a thorough study of linguistics in Morocco, it does seek to examine in detail those aspects of the language issue which are relevant to what happens in the schooling system. For this purpose, a three-step analysis is carried out, involving a summary presentation of the linguistic setting in Moroccan society, .an outline of the language situation in the schools and an assessment of the pedagogical impact of these factors. One of the main objectives of this discussion is to evaluate the implications of the language variable in terms of equality of opportunity and ‘meritocracy’. INTRODUCTION Visitors unfamiliar with the Moroccan scene are bound to find considerable difficulties understanding the prevailing situation. Indeed, any attempt to make out the complex interplay of national, dialectal, and foreign vehicles of expression at work in Moroccan society will be confusing, as there is a clear divorce between official doctrine and observable reality. The preamble of the 1972 Constitution states that the Kingdom of Morocco is ‘a sovereign Muslim state, whose official language is Arabic’. But to which Arabic is it referring? Reading a newspaper, consulting Government documents, listening to a radio broadcast or watching a television programme demonstrate that it is classical Arabic that the country’s leadership has chosen as the official language. This finding is very disconcerting, as any attentive observer of Moroccan everyday life can find out. For the only certainty, amidst the linguistic imbroglio created by the presence and interference of three Berber dialects, three variants of colloquial Arabic, French and even Spanish, is the fact that hardly anybody speaks classical Arabic. Furthermore, a visit to some scholastic institutions, where it is possible to see students being taught in French, others in Arabic, and still others in both French and Arabic, would darken the whole picture and THE MOROCCAN LINGUISTIC CONTEXT As a child, the young Moroccan is immersed in the linguistic world of the surrounding milieu. Thus, whether of Berber or Arab origin, it is within his family that he learns gradually, without even being aware of it, his mother tongue, or first language, as the linguists call it.l It is this particular language, Moroccan Arabic, or Berver (Tamazight), which will normally remain for him, all through 21 22 JAMIL his life, the most spontaneous and natural means of expression and communication. Moroccan Arabic was introduced in Morocco in the 7th century A.D. and has slowly become the most widespread language among the population. Recent estimates made by the linguist Boukous (1979) reveal that Moroccan Arabic is the mother tongue of 60% of the country’s inhabitants. Despite its quantitative importance as the dominant language, Moroccan Arabic has a very low status in society. It has been confined to the role of a spoken language, a dialect, and until five years ago was not considered worth being studied scientifically as a language. It is almost systematically excluded from all official aspects of public life, including TV and radio broadcasts. Yet it is beyond all question the most commonly used language in everyday life (75% of the population if one includes Arabicspeaking Berbers). For those Moroccans who are illiterate (75% of the adult population), it is the only means of communication available; even for those who speak French and/or are familiar with classical Arabic, Moroccan Arabic is still the language in which private, familial and social relations occur. In addition, the so-called dialect has been the only vehicle of transmission of a major part of Moroccan history, art, folklore, traditions and custom. Berber is the language originally spoken by the people living in Morocco before the Arab invasion (7th and 8th centuries). Today, it is still the mother tongue of 40% of the Moroccan population. Although Berber has little in written form, it is also a fundamental element of Moroccan culture, past and present. Most linguistic research research on the Berber language has been undertaken by European scholars. Their approach has often been very ethnocentric, as they have tried to show either that Berber was a Roman or IndoEuropean language (as part of the ‘divide to rule’ policy) or that there were so many variations of that language that it could only be considered as a ‘patois’ with different regional forms (Julien, 1979). However, recent-and more scientific-works reveal that Berber is an autonomous language belonging, like Arabic, to the group of ‘Chamito-Semitic’ languages (Boukous, 1979). In spite of this, the existence and place of Berber language and culture are not really SALMI acknowledged in Moroccan society. Morocco is officially an Arab state and the Berber patrimony is hardly ever taken into account, except in the form of folkloric exhibitions and events intended for touristic purposes. Like Moroccan Arabic, the Berber language is virtually shut out from public life. The degree of institutionalisation of this exclusion policy is so high that, in 1962, when a national official survey on literacy was conducted, the question on ‘languages spoken’ did not mention Berber at all. The recent riots of Tizi-Ouzou in Algeria (April 1980), where the linguistic situation is the same as in Morocco, have drawn the attention of the Moroccan leadership to the potential danger inherent in this state of cultural oppression. The king himself, in a recent international news conference, paid lipservice to ‘the glory of the common past of Berbers and Arabs’. But the fact remains that, today, the Berber language is in an underprivileged position, both as a vehicle of expression and as an object of study. Classical Arabic is basically a written, erudite language, which developed originally as a form of common code (koiizt) among the pre-Islamic central Arabian tribes and which acquired a privileged, sacred status as the language through which the Koran was ‘revealed’. Although classical Arabic and Moroccan Arabic have undoubtedly a common origin, they nevertheless represent two distinct forms of evolution of ancient Arabic languages. Linguistic studies have shown that Moroccan Arabic is not a degraded, simplified version of classical Arabic (Indguiver, 1980). While the latter was codified by eminent philologists after centuries of written tradition (pre-Islamic poetry, grammar works, dictionaries, etc.) and has remained more or less unaltered for the last thousand years, Moroccan Arabic, which derives from the spoken language of some ancient Bedouin tribes, has never ceased to transform itself. Phonetics, vocabulary, morphology, grammar and structure of Moroccan Arabic have changed considerably. Thus, according to Stewart’s definition of language vitality, classical Arabic can be described as a frozen code whereas Moroccan Arabic, which is the mother tongue and affective language of millions of people, shows typical features of ‘vitality’ (Stewart, 1970). For the sake of illustration, it can be said that the distance between Moroccan and classical Arabic is LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLING similar to the difference between Latin and 20th century French. Not only is classical Arabic practically a foreign language for the Moroccans, but in addition it is very difficult and tedious to assimilate. Notwithstanding its sacred nature as a religious language or its beauty as a poetic language, teaching and, therefore, learning classical Arabic presents serious obstacles. For example, the absence of vowels makes it necessary to identify what the words are before interpreting their meaning, which is not always straightforward. Taha Hussein, the famous Arab writer, was himself aware of these intrinsic difficulties: People write in order to read, and read in order to understand, whereas us, we write in order to read, but we do not read in order to understand: we need to understand first in order to be able to read; and if this is within the capacity of exceptional, experienced, insightful people . . . how can you expect the multitude of little children to understand the books they are given at school so as to read them as they are supposed to be read since they must understand them before reading them. (Hussein, 1956) Grammatical structures constitute another important difficulty. For instance, the pattern of flexional endings (Z’rub) is a constant source of mistakes. Ibrahim El-Ban, an Arab linguist, wrote in that respect: The pronunciation of numbers is full of linguistic difficulties, and most people, even well-educated, when they read an article or a sentence in literary Arabic, when they arrive at a number, switch from the literary language to the dialect to avoid pronouncing the number. (quoted in Moatassime, 1974, p. 626) The consequence of this particular situation is that classical Arabic is a very elitist language which only a few scholars are capable of mastering. In a speech at the Arab Academy of Literature in Damascus, Taha Hussein acknowledged this fact: ‘we can see that most of those who read it and write it are unable to express themselves in this literary language’. Despite these inherent difficulties, classical Arabic has been chosen as the official language for political and religious reasons. As a result, Government speeches, formal documents, political meetings, and official statements are in literary Arabic. The mass media also use that language as a main vehicle of expression. Finally, classical Arabic is taught in school and in some university departments. IN MOROCCO 23 French is the other ‘literary’ language operating in Moroccan society. Introduced progressively during the French Protectorate (1912-56), it is still spoken and written widely among the educated minority and more or less understood by approximately 30% of the population. It is the unofficial but actual working language of many Government departments (technical ministries, public corporations), institutions of higher education, and of all major private firms. French is equally used considerably in the press, on TV, and on the radio (international channel). Although Morocco was colonised by both France (in the south) and Spain (in the north), the Spanish language never became as important as French. The two colonial powers had very different cultural policies: while the French authorities tried very hard to ‘assimilate’ the Moroccan population, i.e. to impose the French culture and language, Spain’s educational policy was more generous. The Moroccan children who went to school were taught in Arabic and there was no attempt to integrate them into the Spanish educational system. As a result, the number of Moroccans who learned Spanish was not very high and, after independence, the French language took over gradually as first foreign language. In sum, this presentation of the Moroccan linguistic setting has shed light on three fundamental paradoxes. The first one is the minor position reserved to the two genuinely Moroccan mother tongues, relegated to the status of informal and emotional languages. The second paradox is the de&to take-over of French as the working language of the modern sector of the economy. The third contradiction lies in the adoption, as official language of the country, of a literary code which the majority of the Moroccan people are not able to understanding or to utilise. A few symbolic examples will serve to illustrate the absurdity of this situation. The day after the abortive attempt on his life in 1972, King Hassan made a speech in Moroccan Arabic for the first time since the beginning of his reign, justifying this exceptional behaviour by his desire to reach all citizens. The exact opening words of the king were: ‘We are talking to you in dialectal Arabic so as to be understood perfectly by all elements of our Royal Army and, generally speaking, by all our people’ (Palazolli, 1974). In the same way, JAMIL SALMI 24 just before the Green March towards Western Sahara in 1975, all official TV and radio statements were being broadcast in both Moroccan Arabic and Berber, which was quite exceptional. It was indeed vital to ensure maximum popular mobilisation and, therefore, adequate communication was necessary. Finally, it is quite significant to note that the private sector, which is perfectly aware of the real linguistic situation and very much concerned with efficiency, makes sure that it prepares TV commercials spoken in Moroccan Arabic. LANGUAGES IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM The Moroccan educational system includes three levels. Primary school is five years in duration. Only about 35% of the children in grade 5 succeed in entering secondary school. Lower- and upper-cycle secondary last four and three years respectively. Higher education takes place in universities or in specialised institutes (similar to the French ‘grundes tcoles’). In 1984, total enrolments represented 2.5 millions in primary, 1 million in secondary and 100,000 in university. Two languages are used in the educational system: classical Arabic and French. When a child enters primary school, at the age of seven, having learned the language of the family and immediate community, Moroccan Arabic or Berber, he/she starts being taught in classical Arabic for two years. At nine, in third Table 2. Distribution Table 1. Distribution of languages in primary schooling (%) Grades 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Total Arabic 100 100 54 54 54 66 French 0 0 46 46 46 44 Source: Bulletin statisque du Ministtre de 1’Education Nationale, Minis&e de I’Education Nationale, Rabat, 1981. of secondary schooling (%) Arabic French -humanities -sciences 68 43 32 57 11th grade -humanities -sciences 74 43 26 57 12th grade -humanities -sciences 82 42 18 58 Arabic French 6th grade 46 54 10th grade 7th grade 46 54 8th grade 51 49 9th grade 51 49 Source: Bulletin statisque du Minis&e Rabat. 1981. grade, the child is introduced to French which will serve as the vehicle for learning mathematics and natural sciences, while Arabic is devoted to the study of Islamic civilisation, history, geography and civics. During these years of acquiring basic literacy skills, the mother tongue is strictly banned from the classroom. One must emphasise that French is not taught as a foreign language, but as a tool of access to scientific and technical subjects. At the secondary level, there are four different tracks with respect to language. ‘Original’ education (enseignement originel), which touches only 2.5% of the students, is entirely in classical Arabic. Another 1.5% of secondary school enrolments go through the ‘arabised’ stream, where all classes are also in Arabic, except that French is taught a little as a foreign language. A French-type stream, where all courses were in French and classical Arabic was taught as a foreign language, was in operation until recently, but it is now being de I’Education Nationale, Minis&e de I’Education Nationale, LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLING gradually suppressed. The main track, which receives 95% of the students, is the bilingual section where classical Arabic is used for social science and humanities subjects while all scientific courses are presented in French. within the bilingual system, Furthermore, there are two main curriculum tracks in the second cycle: humanities and sciences. Tables 1 and 2 highlight the breakdown of the timeschedule according to languages in primary and secondary schooling. Naturally, similar divisions can be found in higher education. At the University, the Departments of Theology, History and Geography, Sociology, Philosophy and Arabic Literature are entirely arabised. Law and Public Administration are offered in both Arabic and French. The other subjects are taught only in French. In the private and French schools, the young Moroccans are taught exactly like their French companions, i.e. entirely in French, apart from the fact that they attend introductory Arabic courses at the primary level and are compelled to study Arabic as first foreign language in the high school. THE PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF MULTILINGUALISM Besides, we should settle what is correct language. Languages are created by the poor, who then go on renewing them forever. The rich crystallise them in order to put on the spot anybody who speaks in a different way. Or in order to make him fail exams. (School of Barbiana) Going to school for the first time is a crucial moment in a child’s life. In theory, it is during this transitional period that the young pupil goes beyond the stage of oral speech and starts learning the written language in a systematic way. Soon, the laborious exercise of deciphering and scribbling transforms itself into a thrilling experience: the thorough discovery of one’s own language, when one becomes aware that the signs drawn or read correspond to familiar sounds and expressions. At this point, it is not simply a matter of literacy; primary school should not be concerned only with teaching a child writing and reading skills. What is even more important is the initiation process to a higher dimension of language IN MOROCCO 25 which will be the beginning of a life-long journey into the complex and rich world of one’s own culture. For the Moroccan child, however, schooling does not really bring about such an experience. Instead of growing intellectually while discovering increased means and opportunities of cultural expression through writing and reading his own language, the young pupil is abruptly confronted with a different language. This unpleasant event repeats itself two years later with the introduction of a second foreign language (French). Yet it could be argued that, as Moroccan Arabic and Berber are just ‘spoken dialects’, it would be unfair to consider the language issue as a case of genuine bilingualism. But the works of linguists tend to indicate that any form of bi- or multi-lingualism is likely to bring in elements of complexity and disturbance. Language contact and bilingualism will be considered here in the broadest sense without qualifications about the degree of difference between the two languages . . . . It is immaterial whether the two languages are ‘languages’, ‘dialects of the same language’ or ‘varieties of the same dialect’ . . . . The mechanisms of interference would appear to be the same whether the contact is between French and Chinese, or between two sub-varieties of English used by neighbouring families. (Weinrich, 1968) What, then, are the pedagogical implications of the situation of immersion in a multilingualist environment experienced by the Moroccan children? Being introduced to literacy in a different language from one’s mother tongue is deplorable from many points of view. This concept was established long ago as a principle of action by UNESCO and has been supported by several recent studies (see UNESCO, 1953; see also the special issues of Prospects on language: Vol. XIII, No. 1, 1978; Vol. XIX, No. 1, 1984). The fact is that acquisition of classical Arabic by the Moroccan pupil remains very artificial, since spoken practice of the new language occurs almost exclusively within the classroom context. Now, schooling cannot be equated with education. For the informal education which a child benefits from outside the scholastic institutions is as important -if not more- as the actual teaching done by the teacher. Whether by playing with his schoolmates, discussing with his parents or just by living in his social 26 JAMIL SALMI community, the youth learns many things which represent a valuable complement of his schooling. But, in the Moroccan case, one cannot speak of complementarity between what is learned outside the school and inside the classroom because of the considerable linguistic distance which separates the two worlds. Referring to this problem which affects all Arab countries in an acute way, the Cairo Academy of Literature stated that: As long as the fluent language remains the language spoken at home and in the street . . . this fluent language will be the basic living language. Conversely, classical Arabic will continue to be a luxury dish: young people use it only when they are compelled to, and they don’t care whether they excel in using it or not. (Academic du Caire, 1951) In addition to this problem of difference between the mother tongue and the vehicle of instruction, one has to take the linguistic difficulties inherent in classical Arabic itself into .account. These obstacles, which were briefly discussed earlier, are likely to affect particularly a ‘I-year-old child for whom it is the first exposure to the written language. This may help explain the heavy emphasis on rote learning which characterises the Moroccan educational system. What happens is that, during the major part of his school life, the child spends his time memorising Arabic texts the sense of which he does not grasp (Dichter, 1976; Miller, 1977). The same drawbacks can be pointed at when investigating the impact of the use of French from the third grade on. Here again, the child is plunged into an artificial world which bears no resemblance with his own cultural background. As a result, French is learned in a very abstract and mechanical way. The children are taught to pronounce sounds and to read sentences which do not really make sense to them. Words and expressions are taken out of their context and learned without being understood. Thus, French certainly constitutes a considerable handicap for most children. This has far-reaching consequences, for a good knowledge of that language is decisive in terms of success in the end-of-primary school examinations. As a matter of fact, it represents one third of the whole evaluation. Many experts impact of this agree on the detrimental language structure. For instance, the World Bank team assessing the Third Education Project wrote: Its early introduction in the primary school and increasing emphasis thereafter is considered one of the main causes for student failure and hence of expensive repetition and drop-out rates, particularly in the rural areas and among the urban poor where children have little exposure to French out of school. (World Bank, 1977, p. 8) These pedagogical difficulties which affect the learning of both classical Arabic and French can sometimes lead to more serious problems among the children concerned. Because the pupils are prevented from using their mother tongue, which is their most spontaneous means of expression, they feel unconsciously inhibited and this state of repression can evolve into real pathological perturbations. Professor Moatassime, who did classroom observations in several primary schools and high schools, reports that he came across three types of such disorder: language perturbations caused by perception or emission difficulties (hissing, stuttering, lisping, ‘dyslogic’); perturbations in learning to read (‘dyslexia’) provoked by phonetic confusion or poor perception of sounds; perturbations in learning to write, resulting in letter confusion and syllabic inversion (‘dystorthographie’) (Moatassime, 1974). It is important to emphasise that these troubles are not the consequence of physical malformations of sensorial organs, but that they are manifestations of psychological disorders generated by language situations. Besides these obstacles common to each instruction language, there are great drawbacks stemming from the coexistence of classical Arabic and French. These are the problems which arise from the competition and interference between the media of communication. To understand this point, it is useful to remember that a language is not a neutral instrument. It is a fait de civilisation, which bears in itself symbolic representations and values belonging to the particular culture it originated from. In practice this means that, when a child is taught a language in school, he/she is not only learning the vocabulary, the syntax or the phonetics; he/she is also being transmitted, often without being aware of it, notions and concepts proper to the sociocultural context of that language. This phenomenon is likely to bring about a situation of acute cultural conflict. LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLING The Moroccan child, who is torn between the Arabic and French worlds, has serious difficulties assuming a balanced identity. . . . From the third year of primary school on, there is an unrelenting pressure facing the . . . individual to adant himself to a double set of goals, both of which ideally should be equally striven-for. If the student cannot compete on both levels, he may withdraw from one sector of the battle at the cost of mortgaging his future in one way or the other, or he may be led to drop out altogether. . . (Callaghan, 1966, p. 92) 1 This situation of cultural dualism is accentuated by the fact that the values, ideals and behaviours carried by the subjects taught in French and those taught in Arabic have not much in common. In a very interesting comparative study of French and Arabic primary school textbooks used for reading lessons, a Moroccan sociologist, Ibaaquil, supplies convincing evidence of these differ1978). His observations, ences (Ibaaquil, which are based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the main themes appearing in the books, reveal many instances of contradictions between the Arabic and French models. For instance, the former is represented as patriarchal society where men play a predominant role, where children are non-existent as such but are pictured as smallscale adults where women are obliterated, and where trad;tional moral values are constantly stressed; much emphasis is put on the golden past of the Arab caliphs in Baghdad and, generally speaking, there is little mention of contemporary problems. The French model is described as a society with both men and women, husbands and wives, parents and children; in fact, much attention is paid to children’s activities, which gives the pupils the opportunity to identify themselves with the brought into play. Curiously characters enough, many more French texts than Arabic deal with present life in Morocco or with everyday problems of Moroccan migrants living in France. This situation of exposure to two antagonistic cultural settings is likely to disturb the children in the same way as the parallel use of two languages results in educational and psychological difficulties: Our Moroccan pupils are going to record consciously or unconsciously that speaking Arabic is not the same as speaking in French or, rather, that reality is perceived differently through these languages . . . Between the distorted view of the French books and the deeply past- IN MOROCCO 27 oriented and nostalgic view of the Arabic textbooks, the pupils will find it difficult to remain balanced and the road to alienation is open. The significant differences which characterise the two types of textbooks contribute to increasing this friction and this acculturation. (Ibaaquil, 1978, p. 40) Another dramatic aspect of the distance between the two cultural models is the manner in which problems are tackled. The French textbooks-biased as they are from an ethnocentric viewpoint-introduce the pupils to the modern, logical, rational and scientific world. In the Arabic textbooks however, the emphasis is on personal and social phenomena which are all interpreted on the basis of moral standards and fatalistic statements about man’s destiny. According to Ibaaquil’s investigation of these texts, poverty and wealth are, for instance, solely a function of people’s goodness and will-power; social promotion and success are more or less predetermined; relationships between people, institutions and nations are founded on kindness and self-sacrifice, etc. Integration of these two sides is not easy for the Moroccan student and the consequences of cultural ambivalence can be felt throughout his/her educational career. One of the most obvious manifestations of this conflict is the confusion often made by university students between scientific and theological methods of reasoning. Etienne reported that his law students found it very difficult to distinguish between the approach followed in Arabic language subjects and the one used in the subjects where French is the vehicle of expression. This leads usually to ill-conceived combinations which reflect a set relationship to science and knowledge: rational arguments are replaced by professions of faith, moral statements and personal testimonies. As a general rule, the students do not seem to recognise the need for a demonstration supported by more than plain affirmations, descriptions and analogies on which their reasoning relies. (Etienne, 1978, p. 34) Interviews with other university professors, as well as this researcher’s own teaching experience, back up these observations about the student’s inability to cope with the two cultural models, particularly in social science subjects. Personality perturbations can also result from this state of cultural splitting. It was, for example, reported during an international -. . JAMIL SALMI 28 medical conference on childhood that: A foot in two civilisations propagated by the two languages he is learning, the Moroccan child is often observed to display -a certain disarray, a certain imbalance due to the impossibility of succeeding in integrating this duality into his own personality. (Mnroc MCdicul, 1965, No. 480, p. 329) The logical consequence of this complex situation is that the general linguistic level of the students is very low. Their command of Arabic is limited to literary subjects, while their knowledge of French is quite insufficient for studying scientific subjects. This fact, which all teachers have been aware of for many years, was recognised publicly by the Minister of Education in a press conference given at the end of 1978. The Minister went on to explain that Arabic could not be assimilated properly because French was introduced in the third grade. Similarly, French could not be acquired in a satisfactory way because it was used only for thestudy of scientific subjects. Although poor mastery of the language is worrying from the point of view of both classical Arabic and French, it is particularly regrettable in the latter case, as it hampers students’ ability to learn mathematics and the other science subjects. It is indeed necessary to emphasise that many Moroccan students are handicapped in their studies, at all levels of the educational structure, not because they are not gifted or intelligent enough, but just because the subject concerned is taught in French. Several pieces of evidence can be put forward to prove this point. To begin with primary schooling, a survey done in 1978 by the Planning Division of the Ministry of Education established that knowledge of the French language was the single most important determinant of success at the end-of-primary school examinations. While a pupil weak in Arabic could still pass the exam, the same was not true of children with inadequate command of French. The reason for this is that mathematics results, which amount to one third of the exam, are highly dependent on the child’s degree of attainment in French. Thus, hampered by the language, the pupils spend more time trying to memorise the definitions and terminology than working with concepts and solving problems. In spite of the selection role of the end-ofprimary school exam, the boys and girls who reach secondary school still have an insufficient knowledge of French to enable them to follow the lectures normally. As early as 1971, the professional association of French secondary school teachers in in Morocco exposed the unfairness of this situation which puts the students and the teachers in a very difficult position. Let us imagine an 8th grade student, compelled to follow all math, science, classes in English, with teachers without any knowledge of French; this is more or less what happens in Morocco. (from an article published in Lamalif, April 1971, p. 24) All the discussion and interviews with Moroccan and French mathematics or physics teachers held by this researcher over the last three years indicate that nothing has changed since 1971. On the contrary, all persons familiar with Moroccan secondary schools are unanimous in recognising that the situation is getting worse every year. Much of classroom time is devoted to explaining words and expressions, which leaves even less time to understand pure mathematics or physics notions. A powerful illustration of the devastating effect of bilingualismas it operates in Moroccois provided by the findings of an experiment done by Mohammed Radi, an education planner with the Ministry of Education.2 Radi was interested in exploring the relationship between language, spatial organisation of a questionnaire, and test results of students. For this purpose, he arranged for four groups of 40 ninth grade students to take three aptitude tests: one verbal test, one mathematics test and one spatial test. Group 1 had to work on questionnaires written in French and presented according to the French pattern (from left to right). Group 2 was given questionnaires written in Arabic and organised following the Arabic pattern (from right to left). Group 3 had to answer questions written in French, but presented according to the Arabic patterns and vice-versa for Group 4. The content of the tests was identical for all four groups, the only differences being in the combination of languages and presentation. After the students had taken the tests, their answers were corrected and marks were given using the same scale for all groups. Significant disparities were found between Group lGroup 2 on the one hand and Group 3-Group 4 on the other hand, Groups 1 and 2 having LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLING IN MOROCCO definitely better results. In order to interpret the outcome of the experiment, one needs to know that Groups 3 and 4 correspond to what happens actually in the educational system. For example, in the arabised sections, the students have French language exercises for which the explanations are presented in Arabic and organised following the Arabic pattern; conversely, students in the ‘modern’ section are exposed to a mixture of French-type and Arabic-type subjects. Thus, this experiment clearly illustrates how the interaction of classical Arabic and French can have a negative impact on the students’ performance in other subjects. The language situation is no better in higher education. A large proportion of students simply do not understand enough French to follow the lectures. Interviews done with several professors from from the Faculties of Arts, Science, Economics, Teacher Training Colleges, as well as this researcher’s own experience as a lecturer reveal a disturbing picture: there is a unanimous agreement on the fact that at least 30%, sometimes 50%, of the students are incompetent in French and, consequently, cannot hope for anything but a very superficial contact with the subjects learned. A professor of law described the efforts of the students as ‘linguistic pottering about’ (Etienne, 1978, p. 32). Finally, all these observations may explain the high failure rates at the end-of-year exams (20% only of passes among first year students on the average). It is interesting to note that these detrimental effects of unbalanced bilingualism are not peculiar to the Moroccan case. Studies conducted in other countries where some forms of bilingualism exist point to similar difficulties. It was found, for example in Ireland, that monolingual students were better at problem-solving activities than their bilingual schoolmates (MacNamara, 1967). The Zambian and Nigerian situation also offer useful evidence in that respect; comparisons between pupils taught in English and pupils in their vernacular language showed that the former were handicapped in relation to the latter (Henderson and Sharma, 1974; Bamgbose, 1984). In Ghana too, research done in 1973 indicated that children functioned at a higher conceptual level in their vernacular language than in English (Collison, 1974). Now that the pedagogical implications of the 29 linguistic setting have been analysed, it is important to ascertain whether language is a hindrance for all children alike or whether particular individuals or groups are likely to be affected more than others. The need to ask this question springs from the fact that many highly respected works done by educational sociologists point to the existence of a close relationship between social and cultural origin and language competence. Without trying to review all the research undertaken in that field, it is possible to select some example of powerful theoretical and empirical investigations of the link between socio-cultural background and performance in the ‘academic’ language. Bernstein (1973) in Great Britain and Bourdieu and Passeron (1970) in France seem appropriate in this respect. Bernstein (1973) studied the differences between the culture of the middle class and the working class, with particular emphasis on the forms and uses of language prevailing in each case. His idea was that social relations determine a person’s speech, and that a person’s speech contributes to determining his educational attainment. He attempted thus to detail the characteristics of the linguistic codes operating in each of the cultural contexts observed. One of Bernstein’s crucial findings was that the ‘formal language’ of the middle class was much more relevant to academic success success than the ‘popular language’ of the working class. Bourdieu and Passeron (1970), whose purpose was to analyse the mechanisms at work in the process of cultural reproduction, developed the notion of ‘cultural capital’, arguing that this form of capital was unequally distributed among the various social classes. They explain that educational performance is dependent upon each student’s cultural capital and stress the importance of language as a preponderant element in that respect. They pay particular attention to the notion of distance between the sophisticated language used in school for pedagogical communication and knowledge acquisition and the original home language (mother tongue) of the student. Relying on the results of several empirical surveys, Bourdieu and Passeron show that language is not a neutral pedagogical tool, but that it plays a key role in explaining the correlation between social origin and academic achievement. 30 JAMIL SALMI Given that the informative efficiency of pedagogic communication is always a function of the receiver’s linguistic competence (defined as their variably complete mastery of the code of university language), the unequal social class distributin of educationally profitable linguistic capital constitutes one of the best hidden mediations through which the relationship between social origin and scholastic achievement is set up , . (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1970, p. 144) Thus, if it can be documented that, already within the same culture and language, there are considerable variations, powerful enough to make a significant difference in terms of academic performance, it seems logical to expect similar phenomena to happen in a multilingual situation such as that of Morocco. Now, what kind of evidence can be put forward to measure the relationship between social class and language competence in the Moroccan case? In the rural areas, pupils have practically no opportunity to be exposed to the French language apart from the time spent in the classroom. As a matter of fact, there are no newspapers, no books, and no TV sets at home and one can assume, without fear of being that the distance between the mistaken, mother tongue and the medium of instruction is at its maximum for the rural children. On the other hand, in the cities, the availability of cultural tools and the possibility of communicating with people who have some knowledge of French is likely to be directly correlated with the socio-economic position of the child’s family. It is not surprising to observe that it is among the educated elite, which coincides with the high income class, that French is most widespread. Awareness of this situation led the Minister of Education to admit that children of lower social origin were handicapped by the language structure of the schools: But who are the weakest pupils in French? It is the majority of children from poor families. (quoted in L’Opinion, 13 September 1978) The data from a survey done in April 1980 provide more evidence of the influence of the social factor on language competence (Salmi, 1981). If one considers the socio-economic distribution of students among the various departments and schools of higher education surveyed, it appears clearly that the proportion of students whose parents belong to the higher income class is at its largest in those departments where the importance of French is greatest. While the average share of ‘highincome’ students is 22.6% for the total sample, it reaches 32.5% in the Department of Economics, 30.2% in the Department of French Literature, and 26.3% in the School of Business Administration. The link between social class and language is also confirmed by the fact that the only department of the sample where Arabic is the medium of instruction (Humanities) is equally the department which has the highest proportion of students from poor origin: 38.9% versus 31.5% for the whole sample. One would have expected to find more acute differences, but there is a logical reason to explain why the gap is not very high, when one considers only the Moroccan university: most Moroccan students graduating from the French fyc&es are enrolled in foreign institutions of higher education. Before terminating this discussion of the linguistic setting and its educational impact, it is necessary to emphasise the basic qualitative difference between what happens in the public school system and the situation in the private educational institutions. For, although French is not their mother tongue, the Moroccans who attend these schools, besides originating from rich families where French is fluently spoken, are not confronted with the same kind of disturbing experience as their colleagues from the public schools. Indeed, whereas the latter suffer from the interaction between classical Arabic and French, the former are plunged in only one different cultural world. They are not taught French in an abstract and mechanistic way, as the majority of the Moroccans are, but they learn it in a much more comprehensive way, just as French children do. This does not mean that French-educated Moroccans are not psychologically affected by the gap between their mother tongue and their schooling language, but their mastery of the written language is certainly more thorough and adequate, which makes them better equipped for a balanced intellectual growth. CONCLUSION Two fundamental findings arise out of this discussion. First, it is a certainty that many students are severely handicapped in terms of cognitive achievement, not necessarily because of inherent intellectual deficiencies, but be- LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLING cause they have to study in a foreign language which they do not master and cannot, because their teachers have not mastered it either. While we could theoretically expect the influence of language to be less in scientific subjects, this is not true in the Moroccan case where access to science is conditioned by the knowledge of French. Thus, the language policy constitutes a major source of wastage which is not an accidental element, but an inevitable product of the schooling process. The second point is the close relationship between socio-cultural origin and language which introduces a disturbing element of social bias in the educational process. This social dimension of the language issue does not bear solely upon performance at school but has wider implications in the economic sphere. As long as French remains the working language of the modern sector, mastery of this language will continue to be a decisive factor in terms of access to the best paid and most prestigious occupations. What are the prospects for change? From a purely educational viewpoint, the use of the two colloquial languages (Berber and Moroccan Arabic) as instruction languages could have a very positive impact as it would enable to remove a major source of pedagogical difficulty. But the social and political feasibility of such a measure is not very high. In the present context, it would never be acceptable to reduce the importance of classical Arabic, because of. its sacred nature as religious language and as cement between the various Arab nations. The only realistic improvement which could be foreseen would be a gradual transformation of classical Arabic into a more modern form of language which could be a synthesis between Moroccan Arabic and literary Arabic. However, this kind of evolution should not happen solely within the school system but should correspond to a wider movement aiming at replacing French in all aspects of public, economic, social and cultural life. NOTES 1. 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