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Dormitories Keep Moroccan Girls in School
FrontLines - March 2009
Girls in their quality dormitory in Morocco.
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Rabat, Morocco—In Morocco, 20 percent of girls aged 11 to 14 do not attend school. In rural areas, 27 percent are out of school.
Many girls dropped out because they must travel so far from home to school. Dormitories were seen as a solution
to keep girls in school.
In 2005, USAID’s mission in Morocco worked with government
officials to build four dormitories
for 83 girls; by 2006, 14 dormitories housed 800 girls. In 2007, with the support of the Entraide Nationale, the main government partner, the quality dormitories program included more than 100 dormitories, reaching over 6,400 girls in 12 of Morocco’s 16 regions.
By 2008, the project had revamped a total of 198 dorms with over 16,688 girls.
What exactly is a quality dormitory?
Most dorm rooms fit from six to 20 bunk beds. The newest dormitories are divided into cubicles with four bunks per section,
in accordance with a new law limiting the number of people
that can sleep in one room. The rooms have the usual accommodations of home away from home—warm blankets and lockers, closets and/or trunks beside each bed.
The dormitories also serve as social centers for the girls. Working through local associations
and schools, quality dorms now provide support to ensure that rural girls are not simply lodged and nourished, but that they receive academic and psychosocial support to help them develop personally
and succeed in their studies.
Different dorms have different support structures, but they all have adult supervision. Teams of women work in the kitchen, adults supervise homework sessions,
and adults work in the dining
halls and administration, as well as performing cleaning.
The “quality” model helps girls to become more involved in shaping their own future, and more active in contributing to their community, according to education officials and families.
Bouabouâa Mouha, the father of a 13-year-old student, explains: “I feel secure that our daughter is safer in the dormitories, she receives help and becomes more responsible and independent. When Nezha comes back home, she even helps her brothers with what she has learned at the dorm and at school.”
The dormitories are having a positive impact on education. In rural areas, only 1.7 percent of the 840 girls participating in the quality dormitories program have dropped out, compared to the national rate of 16 percent. And 79.6 percent of the beneficiary
girls passed their final exams, 30 percent more than
the national average.
School directors and teachers say many of the girls have become leaders in the classroom and the school. And parents like Mouha have also noticed radical changes.
Entraide Nationale has fully adopted the quality girls’ dormitories
model, which is being introduced
into over 200 new dormitories
for girls and for boys. The organization has assumed both administrative and financial responsibility for the program. In some regions, local authorities have committed to building and equipping dorms, and supporting the training of resident advisors.
★
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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