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Educational Aspirations - Morocco

In addition to asking respondents about the highest level of education they have completed, the survey asked those ages 18 to 24 about the level of schooling they would like to complete. Although educational attainment in Morocco is low, particularly among women,  aspirations for postsecondary education among Moroccan women are high, even in comparison to men (Figure 3). Low rates of completed education should not, therefore, be dismissed as simply reflecting preferences among Moroccans, but instead could be evidence of a gap in educational opportunities.

  • Women have higher aspirations for education than men: 38% of women would like to complete college or graduate school, compared to 25% of men. Nearly three in ten men are satisfied with their current level of education, compared to just 15% of women, which could in part be because men already have higher levels of educational attainment.

  • Married women report less interest in future education than their unmarried counterparts. 48% of unmarried women aspire to complete higher education. However, while just over one in five married women is satisfied with her level of education (which is at the primary school level for the majority of female respondents ages 18 – 24), a similar number of married women want a postsecondary degree.
  • Similar proportions of women living in both rural and urban areas are satisfied with their current level of education (15% and 16%, respectively). However, while 45% of urban-dwelling women would like to attend college or graduate school, only 29% of rural-dwelling women would like to do so.
  • One in five Amazigh-speaking women is satisfied with the education she has, and one in four aims for a college or university degree. Arabic- and French-speaking women are more likely to aim for higher education (47%), and only 15% are satisfied with their current level of education.

Of the women who said they wanted to attend college or university, 38% were confident that they would face no obstacles to those ambitions. Seventeen percent cited financial obstacles to pursuing higher education, and 14% believed that their parents or husbands would not allow them to go to school (Table 1).

Moroccan women are interested in a very wide variety of fields, but Medicine, Law, and Economics are the most popular fields of study among women reporting that they would like to attend college or graduate school and who have a field in mind (Table 2). Fifteen percent said they did not have a particular course of study in mind yet.