Morocco\'s Minister of Higher Education Lahcen Daoudi Morocco\'s Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Executive Training, Lahcen Daoudi has cited a severe shortage in PhD-holding recruits that could be assigned to government positions.
Answering questions in parliament raised by the majority opposition, he said the ministry was searching last year for 20 PhD holders to assign them in different positions but didn’t find any.
\"Students stop at their Masters\' degree...I  have decided to help those who want to continue scientific research to obtain PhDs with a grant of 4000 dirhams per student,\" he said.
Daoudi promised more openings in biology and chemistry, while postponing those in private law and economy.
He also said that a medical school would be opened next year in Tangiers and Agadir. He said that Morocco suffered a shortage of PhD students especially in private law in Arabic and French. The same rang true for the economy and sociology which \"raised the concerns of the ministry\".
Daoudi announced that recent applications for candidacy for positions of university rectors and senior officials must be submitted, after issuing a law regulating the appointment of higher senior positions. \"Some have rushed to change officials in universities, ignoring the new law,\" he said.
Daoudi denied that the Ministry was going to exclude poor students, because higher institutions had formed a merit-based model of a baccalaureate academic success rate of 16-19 out of 20 points. He said that the problem lay in the limited number of dedicated seats in higher institutions, which as a result decreased the possibility of accepting over 200,000 applications.
\"For example, the School of Architecural Engineering in Rabat supervised by the Ministry of Housing and Construction received more than 11000 students but accepted only 120,\" he said.
Minister Daoudi said that the only possible solution was to establish academic institutions following foreign models, where he said Spanish, Italian, French, German and Russian officials had agreed to establish internationally recognised institutes in Morocco in order to absorb the number of students and ensure Moroccan students chose to stay in their country.