CITI: Experience in introducing ICT into Middle School education in Morocco

We have completed a 3 year project, sponsored by the Korean KOICA agency, to develop competencies, resources and tools for mathematics and science education for use by middle school students and teachers in Morocco. The results have been encouraging both in terms of increased student performance and teacher involvement and appropriation of the ICT based approach. 1 Background In general, the level in mathematics and science of a large proportion of Moroccan students in middle school and high school has been below expectations. Moroccan eighth-graders, for example, have performed below the international average [1, p. 18]. Statistics also show that a large portion of Moroccan students do not make it to higher education. These facts combined have led to the research grant sponsored by the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)[2], with the aim of the improvement of overall education in Morocco, and in particular improvement in the use of Information and Communications Technology. The Center for Information Technology Innovation (CITI) for Human Development, at Al Akhawayn in Ifrane (AUI) is exploring how IT based education could improve both motivation and performance of students in middle school and high school[3]. We have completed a 3 year project to develop competency and useful IT-based instructional materials for Moroccan Junior High (“college”) level mathematics and science instruction, as a foundation for the larger project of improving and assisting primary and secondary education in Morocco. This paper describes the approach used and results achieved in improving motivation and performance of students as well as teachers. Contextual specifics making this study interesting have included an environment where almost no use of ICT had been practiced before, an almost complete lack of preexisting ICTbased resources for math and science in the Arabic language, and a comparison of results in two very different institutions: a small rural school, and a larger school in a major city.