The situation of the Amazigh people at the Higher School of Education and Training in Oujda: After killing and abuse, they are now mutilating the corpse..
Against the background of the debate surrounding the competition to appoint an assistant professor of higher education, specializing in Amazigh linguistics, at the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences - Oujda, on: 05-05-2023, and regarding the (horrible) violations that the competition witnessed in the formation of its committee, the Amazigh World newspaper investigated the merits of the competition. This match was held, and the veracity of what was circulated was actually confirmed by professors from inside and outside the college, who confirmed that no professor from the Amazigh divisions (Boujda and Silouane) had been contacted to supervise that match.
The same source added that the professors who teach Amazigh in this institution are either doctoral students or non-specialized professors, and there is a clear and painful disdain in dealing with the Amazigh language in this institution.
Below is an opinion article on the topic:
The status of the Amazigh language at the Higher School of Education and Training in Oujda:
After the killing and abuse, now they are mutilating the body.
The Higher School of Education and Training, Oujda, announced a competition for the appointment of an assistant professor of higher education, specializing in Amazigh linguistics, on 05-05-2023, a competition that witnessed terrible violations in the formation of its committee.
According to reliable sources, the aforementioned committee included a professor of Arabic studies, who has no connection to the Amazigh language. Rather, she had enough academic knowledge to evaluate the candidates’ files and their performance in the oral interview.
Moreover, those familiar with the secrets of the file have expressed their certainty that the match was tailored to suit one of the candidates, and that it is merely a farcical charade imposed by the current legislative procedures in this regard. They also wondered about the secret behind not involving the professors of the Amazigh Studies Department in supervising the match, even though Mohammed I University has two Amazigh departments (Boujda and Nador). Just as they wondered, by analogy, about the possibility of appointing a professor specializing in Arabic studies as a member of a committee that supervises a competition in the field of French studies, sociology, history, or other fields???
It is worth noting that the aforementioned institution had announced, during the past season, a previous match (on September 15, 2022), in the specialty: Amazigh Studies, a match whose fate is unknown up to the moment, in clear evidence of the level of belittlement with which the Amazigh League is treated. In this institution.
Observers and doctors specializing in the Amazigh language denounced this contemptuous treatment issued by the institution, and they also denounced a number of administrative actions issued by its officials, which ignore the contents of the Kingdom’s constitution, and even harm the governmental steps that have been underway, for some time, in the field of integrating the Amazigh language into various languages. Fields and sectors. Among these behaviors:
Allocating one position to the Amazigh Studies Department for the past season, despite the fact that the number of students registered in the institution exceeds one hundred and fifty students, a position whose fate is currently unknown;
Assigning research students (in the doctoral field) to the tasks of teaching first-year students, instead of resorting to research professors specializing in Amazigh;
Resorting to non-specialized professors, who only know the word in Amazigh: “Iqaridin”/money, and assigning them to teach parts that are not related to their specializations (as part of a series of trade-offs that provide them with compensation for additional teaching hours);
Allocating one position for the Amazigh language, for the current season 2023-2024, even though the number of students that the institution will receive, according to the official document issued by the Ministry, is 1,117 students. You can imagine one official professor charged with teaching a thousand students;
The institution’s first official assumed the task of coordinating the Amazigh Studies Division, which prompted observers to ask the question of the relationship between the first official’s lack of enthusiasm for opening positions in the Amazigh specialty, and his eagerness to remain in the coordination position (which fulfills his duties, of course!)
The doctors concerned with appointment positions in such competitions have called on the Minister to send a fact-finding committee to investigate these violations and imbalances, and to stand up to the blatant contempt to which the Amazigh language is subjected to in this institution, or to transfer the division to one of the other training institutions whose officials show the appropriate amount of commitment. Respect towards this basic component of national identity. They also appealed to various Amazigh cultural institutions and associations to take the initiative to follow up on the file, with the necessary firmness and commitment to national constants.
Abdullah Ajlamos
A researcher specializing in Amazigh linguistics