Becoming Workers of Greater France: Vocational Education in Colonial Morocco, 1912–1939

Vocationally oriented education in early twentieth-century Morocco was the privileged policy by which French colonial administrators attempted the economic development [mise en valeur] of the protectorate while managing class, labor, and racial tensions. It entailed the implementation of three interrelated reforms: the establishment of vocational-technical schools, efforts to make regular schools more career-oriented, and a systematic program for providing vocational guidance. As in the metropole, these reforms supposedly reflected a “modern” curriculum and “modern” pedagogical techniques, but were implemented through an often conservative, highly differentiated, and frequently unequal, colonial educational system. Importantly, these reforms targeted all students, including indigenous Muslims, indigenous Jews, and especially European settlers. While vocational education encountered numerous challenges and often failed its indigenous students, it continued to appeal to the protectorate’s officials and its European students. Consequently, it remained a cornerstone of educational policy in both the French and Spanish sectors through the end of the protectorate.