Description

EDUCMA indicates the person's educational attainment in Morocco in terms of the level of schooling completed.

Comparability — General

The changes in the education system in Morocco are reflected in the coding structure for educational attainment.

• Before 1985, education followed a 5-7 system with 5 years of primary and 7 years of secondary school, including 4 years of lower and 3 years of upper secondary.
• In 1985, the education system was modified to a 9-3 system, with 9 years of basic education divided into two cycles of 6 and 3 years, followed by 3 years of secondary school. The 1994 and 2004 censuses recorded educational attainment based on this system.
• In 2014, the education system is a 6-3-3 with 6 years of primary, 3 years of lower secondary, and 3 years of upper secondary school.

Secondary education has general and vocational tracks, but these are not identified by the census samples.

Higher education options include technical and university studies, but these are not separately coded. The baccalaureate is required to pursue higher education and is awarded after completing secondary school. The 1982, 2004, and 2014 samples asked additional questions regarding a person's highest diploma or degree earned in general education and vocational training, which are available as source unharmonized variables.

The educational categories are more comparable between the 1994 and 2004 samples, with respect to the 1982 and 2014 samples, due to the changes in the structure of the education system. For higher compatibility, primary and lower secondary education in 2014 are coded as the basic education level (1994-2004) given that they have similar duration. Preschool education is identified by the Morocco 1994-2014 samples, but not for 1982.

A harmonized international classification of educational attainment is available in EDATTAIN, which imposes a number of compromises to regularize the data across countries. Conversely, EDUCMA retains the full detail on educational attainment for the Morocco samples.

The number of years of schooling completed is available separately in YRSCHOOL.

Universe

Availability

• Morocco: 1982, 1994, 2004, 2014