Shared values, cultural diversity and education :
What to learn and how ?

The community school: city's structuring pole

BouKana and Ouled Larbi, Nador Province, Morocco

The "Medersat.com" is the name given to the Ecoles Communautaires Rurales ECR (Rural Community Schools) of the BMCE Foundation in Morocco, and the elements of the innovative national project initiated by this Foundation in this country. Its inauguration marks the schooling support program for children launched in the rural areas of Morocco, linking this patronage foundation to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The project falls within the framework of conventions sealed, on the one hand, by the Ministry of National Education for its compliance of the ECR concepts with the national concerns in connection to education and, on the other hand, with the René Descartes University (Paris V) for the pedagogical aspects.

At its structural level, each school has a standard nucleus susceptible of collaboration according to the needs of the city. This nucleus contains an extra-school space and a school one (the extra-school one being polyvalent space for the meetings/parties and a converging point of the complementary programs, equipment and holiday cottage). Openings and a free space are considered here in order to let the immediate environment penetrate a forest, rooms, or any other vital space. In order to build them, local materials have been used and exploited, giving value to the techniques and the know-how of the concerned populations. These characteristics make the ECR to be not only integrated to the city, but also called upon to become its structuring point. The goal was that of building a school issue, but having certain modernity aspects. Moreover, the population's know-how resource and the taking their needs into consideration are but one aspect of their wider implication in the project. This is true since they are the ones who will be the community school's managers, through an association that represents them. Finally, the ECR has a pedagogical team of educators-managers who benefit from training adapted to the teaching specifics and education in a rural milieu.

The project is a response to the King's call upon mobilization of all components of society, for the promotion of education in a rural milieu. This appeal goes back over the crucial character of development and also the central place that education and training must have, as growth and social progress. The quantitative goal has been fixed at 1000 ECR by 2010.

Ms. Nawal El Moutawakel
Executive Director
BMCE Morocco Foundation
http://www.e-bmcebank.ma/

Mr. Bouna Sémou Diouf
Resident Representative of the UNDP in Morocco


Partners
BMCE/BMCE Bank Foundation
UNDP
Paris University V
Education-Health NGO
Mediterranean Development Forum

Project launched in 1998.
Official inauguration of the first two Rural Community Schools in Boukana and Ouled in October 2000.