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The Power of Distributed Leadership

Styles in Education Practices: The
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 International Journal of Advance Study and Research Work (2581-5997)/ Volume 3/Issue 2/February 2020

The Power of Distributed Leadership Styles in

Education Practices: The New Challenges and
Perspectives of the Moroccan School
Abdelaaziz El Bakkali, PhD
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences- Dhar Mehraz
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdulah University, Fes, Morocco
Email: elbakkaliaziz@gmail.com

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3692413

Abstract

During the last few decades, effective leadership research has been an area of growing interest, debate, and examination in
many scholarly studies. Scholars such as Peter G. Northouse (1997), Catherine Barrett and Robert Breyer (2014), Bradley S.
Smith (2016) have provided a host of reviews and studies in the realm of effective leadership with the purpose to demarcate
the potential leadership styles, approaches, and insights into what constitutes effective leadership qualities in educational
institutions. This paper aims at examining effective leadership in the educational context in Morocco. Specifically, it attempts
to unravel the timely challenges facing the development and progress of leadership in Moroccan educational institutions. By
the same token, it tries to discuss some perspectives which foreground potential advancements in the educational sphere. The
paper adopts a meta-synthesis technique, whereby a special examination of the various already conducted studies came out
with conclusions: perspectives and challenges. The typical meta-synthesis method consists of articles, books, and any
scholarly academic source related to school effectiveness with respect to leadership. Owing to its descriptive, diagnostic, and
generative nature, this method allows the researcher to explore the wide-range of pitfalls and weaknesses which provide
potential opportunities for alternative conclusions to be adopted in restructured and well-run approaches to leadership and
school effectiveness. The major results and conclusions drawn from this paper are to be deeply and qualitatively discussed
and analyzed.
Keywords: Effective leadership, education, school effectiveness, meta-synthesis.

Introduction
Education has always been considered as the backbone of any society. It has long contributed to the considerably significant
upsurge of many countries at different levels including agriculture, business, law, health, and other services. To include these
among the developmental priorities, most developed countries, mainly from Europe and America, deploy education to maintain
and achieve the significant ranking of this sector with the idea to accomplish efficient progression. In the case of these countries,
the success of the educational system crops up from the support of the government that provides the necessities to guarantee a
substantial success in the educational sphere. To ensure such success, leadership rises up as a paramount method in the newly
uprising strategies in the educational cycle.
Effective leadership education, thus, has recently emerged to the front with the objective to highlight high performance in the
teaching/learning cycle by building up enough space for school leaders in order to interact with larger social and organizational
contexts in which they construct global communication. Evidence from school organizations constitutes broad categories of
successful leadership practices that are largely independent. These practices are sort of an immense basis of potential and
prominent leadership which is necessary for almost all situations. How leadership matters in education are important in
promoting the learning of all students through the positive effects of organizational reforms. As solid evidence of the
implementation of leadership in education proves positive in the pathway for large-scale education improvement, developing
countries have been lately enticed to follow the scale of essential and successful leadership. Morocco, hence, is not an exception,
here, just as the consciousness of leadership in education grows bigger with rising whims to trespass failures of the very last
decades.
Education in Morocco has undergone years of fluctuated failures despite stages of reforms that have been advanced by the state
almost every decade since independence because, and along these periods, several governments have had no clear intention to
give priority to the education sector, neither at the level of human resources nor at the financial aids. This failure is the result of
the lack of a professional vision of these governments and also due to shared responsibilities among parents, teachers, students,
media, NGOs, etc. Thus, the country ranks top of the states with educational deficiencies. Although Morocco has had a long

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 International Journal of Advance Study and Research Work (2581-5997)/ Volume 3/Issue 2/February 2020

tradition of cultural multilingualism, socially and linguistically diverse, and its cultural makeup is supposedly one of the richest
in North African countries (Zouhir, 2014, p. 37), the strategic missions of the country‟s political guidelines in education remain
weak. With the premise to bring new dimensional reforms to the forefront, educational specialists in Morocco try to install new
philosophy by implementing leadership style in this sector. By doing so, pedagogues and specialists in didactics work on the
challenges pertained for long and draw a clear line of potential perspectives to move with this sector onward.

Purpose
The objective of this study is primarily to analyze the effective leadership in Moroccan schools, drawing it as a method with its
implementations, implications, challenges, and perspectives to install a new culture in schools. A range body of literature review
about leadership styles in educational effectiveness will support the development of a framework that will reveal the importance
of leadership in bringing about future leaders with enough skills in the sphere of education.

Research Questions
1. What role does the leadership style play in the establishment of positive school culture?
2. How does leadership style impact the teaching/learning cycle?
3. How does this style generate efficient performance in the Moroccan educational sphere?
4. How can teachers, students, parents, and civic society organizations work together to form an effective integrated leadership
model?

Methodology
To write this paper, I have gathered data through an in-depth analysis of current scholarly articles. For this study, I searched a
variety of education-related databases to find relevant, peer-reviewed articles, journals, and books. This systematic literature
review focused on successful effective leadership and the role that these leadership styles play in the development of an
integrated leadership model in order to create a positive school culture, enhance organizational effectiveness, and increase the
teacher/learner satisfaction. As this comprehensive study details the timeframe within which the literature was selected, it
is divided into two categories: meta-analysis and meta-synthesis. I conducted a meta-analysis by getting the findings from
several studies on the same subject and analyzed these using standardized procedures. Patterns and relationships in the meta-
analysis are detected and conclusions are drawn; it is associated with a deductive research approach (Urquhart 2010). Meta-
synthesis, on the other hand, is based on non-statistical techniques, which integrates evaluated and interpreted findings of
multiple qualitative research studies. A meta-synthesis literature review was conducted when following the inductive research
approach (Walsh & Downe, 2005). As this paper is a meta-synthesis of current scholarly articles, no further ethical
considerations are required. This method helps in bringing together qualitative data to form a new interpretation of the
integration of leadership style in the school culture, mainly through an explanatory theory of why this integration works or not.

1. Effective Leadership in the Educational Sphere

Effective leadership is one of the most important aspects of building successful sustainability in any organization to solve our
crisis and work out new perspectives. Leadership actors, or leaders, are supposed to control and take actions within the
organization by setting up optimistic goals, steering up the acts of any organization towards its goals through effective
strategies. Effective Leadership takes hold of bringing about alluring desires and positive changes to the organization by means
of identifying different responsibilities of their leaders. In education, leadership style engages leaders as pedagogical actors
whose interactions contribute to the effective success of the “organizational” schools. Leadership style suggests that teachers,
students, school principals and administrators, pedagogues, didactic people, and even politicians must demonstrate targeted
leadership skills to work out innovative ways to increase academic achievements. Thus, school leaders are considerably
supposed to work together to inspire and lead significant inspiration and enthusiasm in the teaching/learning cycle to develop,
nurture, and retain effective leadership acts in this cycle. In this context, effective school leaders demonstrate targeted leadership
skills by promoting professional growth among faculty and establish efficacy in pedagogy within collaborative partnerships
between administrators and teachers who are supposed to be helpful in uniting efforts and overcoming the persistent barrage of
negative undercurrents (Barrett & Breyer, 2014, p.2).

1. 1 Literature Review
If defining “leadership” would entice more than one entry, it is indispensable to note that the term can be defined differently
depending on the contexts that mostly mean the art of inspiring a group of people to act towards achieving certain goals. Hence,
there are many definitions of leadership; most definitions imply that intentional influence is exerted by one person or a group,
over other people or groups, to structure the activities and relationships in a group or organization. Understood as a social
influencing process, leadership concepts differ in terms of who exerts influence, the nature of that influence, the purpose for the
exercise of influence and its outcomes (Cambridge Assessment, 2017). At the heart of most prevailing definitions of leadership,
Leithwood et al., (2004) argue that there are two functions: “providing direction” and “exercising influence;” each of these
functions can be carried out in different ways, and such differences distinguish many models of leadership from one another-

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 International Journal of Advance Study and Research Work (2581-5997)/ Volume 3/Issue 2/February 2020

such definition seems overly bureaucratic or hierarchical, although it does not need to be interpreted as such (p.20). Nor is it a
very precise way of defining leadership and may be vulnerable to the occasional charge that such lack of precision severely
hampers efforts to better understand the nature and effects of leadership (Leithwood et al., 2004, p.20). Leadership, Yusuf
(2017) further explains, engages in how leaders develop and facilitate the achievement of the mission and vision, develop values
required for long term success and implement these via appropriate actions and behaviors (p. 38). However, leadership, Smith
(2016) asserts, can be defined as a concept that has widely been studied and researched across a variety of domains including
both business and educational spheres where school principals must incorporate a wide range of leadership skills and styles
mainly to direct school organizations towards common goals and well-directed visions (p. 65).

1. 2 Leadership Styles in the Education Sphere

Leadership style, as a process inspiring the group with social influence, peers and sways views and attitudes, not as a position of
authority, to create fundamental organizations by efficient leaders. Successful leaders have mastered not only “the basics,” but
also productive responses to the unique demands of the contexts in which they find themselves:
In this sense, all successful leadership is “contingent” at its roots. Indeed, impressive evidence suggests that
individual leaders actually behave quite differently (and productively) depending on the circumstances they are
facing and the people with whom they are working. This calls into question the common belief in habitual
leadership “styles” and the search for a single best model or style. We need to be developing leaders with large
repertoires of practices and the capacity to choose from that repertoire as needed, not leaders trained in the delivery
of one “ideal” set of practices. We believe this evidence argues for further research aimed less at the development of
particular leadership models and more at discovering how such flexibility is exercised by those in various leadership
roles. (Leithwood et al., 2004, p. 10).
Such interconnectedness of leadership styles which aims at promoting common successful goals is drawn through four layers
that can be stated as transactional, transformational, inspirational, and instructional leadership styles which are present in some
ways in most leaders, but rarely found to be exclusive (Smith, 2016, p. 66). Smith argues that since transactional and
transformational leadership are not dichotomous, managerial characteristics of transactional leadership must be present before
transformational attributes can emerge, and elements of both transactional and transformational leadership were present
ineffective leaders (p. 66). He maintains that in the educational sphere, the goal of all school leaders should lead in a manner that
enables students, teachers, parents, and the community to truly feel that they are an essential part of great school culture (p. 66).
In order to achieve this goal, administrators must have an understanding of transformational, transactional, instructional, and
inspirational leadership styles and how they can function together to create an integrated leadership model (Smith, 2016, p. 66).
Leadership style implies how leaders induce others to follow, creating, thus, the leader/follower dichotomy by means of
inspiration. According to Yusuf (2017), this style entails envisioning a desirable future, promoting a clear purpose or mission,
supportive values, and intelligent strategies, and empowering all those concerned: “„Showing the way‟ presupposes knowing, or
at least believing in, that way. And the way implies the route to a destination: a vision of a desirable future position -- what we
want to be or where we want to be” (p. 38). Following the leader/follower dichotomy in leadership style, the influencing process
to achieve organizational objectives through change justifies involving followership, influence, change management, people and
organizational objectives. “A follower,” Yusuf (2017) contends, “is a person who is being influenced by a leader” (p.39). “Good
followers,” he continues, “are not „yes people‟ who simply follow the leader without giving input that influences the leader”
(p.39).
Yusuf asserts that effective leaders influence followers, and their followers influence them” (p.39). It is clear, then, how much
effect sensitive leadership is increasingly having in the contexts in which leaders work and how, in order to be successful,
leaders need to respond flexibly to their contexts. Leithwood et al (2004) explain that such evidence argues for research aimed
less at the development of particular leadership models and more at discovering how such flexibility is exercised by those in
various leadership roles” (p.22).
In the context of leadership style in education, leaders share their learning styles with teachers as colleagues and partners with a
certain common goal: “Effective principals can utilize faculty meetings as a place to model high-quality instruction and should
take an active role in planning, implementing, and evaluating quality professional development for teachers. Administrators
must be viewed as a partner in collaborative productive relationships and be able to demonstrate knowledge and skill in
pedagogy” (Barrett & Breyer, 2014 p. 4). Such effect in schools is implemented with varying degrees of success, where
educational institutions appear different in leadership style characterized by differences in the organizational context. While
successful principals in inner-city schools often find it necessary to engage in more direct and top-down forms of leadership than
do successful principals in suburban settings, the curricular knowledge of successful elementary principals frequently rivals the
curricular knowledge of their teachers, while secondary principals typically rely on their department heads for such knowledge
(Barrett & Breyer, 2014 p. 10). Similarly, Barrett and Breyer contend, small schools allow for quite direct engagement of
leaders in modeling desirable forms of instruction and monitoring the practices of teachers, whereas equally successful leaders
of large schools typically influence their teachers in more indirect ways, mainly through planned professional experiences and
developments (2014, p. 10).

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1. 3. Successful and Effective Leadership in Education

As effective Leadership is seen as a prime factor in improving education effectiveness, the quality of the learning/teaching cycle
rises up to the surface with certain requirements for further achievements. These achievements, which Geoff Southworth1
describes as parental involvement, the quality of teaching, and school leadership, lead to the successful performance through
which leaders in schools promote their strategic visions differently. That is good school leadership is not a success by means of
a monolithic practice or vision; rather, it is the success by adopting contextual skills towards certain goals (2017). Southworth
argues that:
Not only is there a diversity of theory about leadership, but it also varies according to context. For
example, in some countries, schools have high levels of autonomy; in other countries, there may not be
as much autonomy. In some systems, principals do not appoint teaching staff; in others they do.
Ensuring that leadership is sensitive to context and that leadership development activities reflect local
circumstances is important (2017).
While leadership is widely understood as making a difference, he contends, measuring an individual leader‟s impact is very
difficult; this is because their influence is indirect -- they work with and through others, most obviously their teacher colleagues
(2017). As different as these perspectives to school reform are, however, they all depend for their success on the motivations,
responsibilities, and capacities of their leadership style. Hence, Leithwood et al argue that the chance of any reform improving
student learning is remote unless the district and school leaders agree with its purposes and appreciate what is required to make
it work (2004, p.4). School leaders, here, should work to empower other pedagogical actors, provide the necessary support for
improvement efforts. This translates how effective leadership builds up diversity in school reform, having, thus, great effects on
school, program and instruction, and student outcomes. Leadership decisions are built upon the premise of a fundamental basis
that echoes the success of the students learning. Based on the busy daily happenings in a school that is easy to fall back on what
is most convenient, Smith (2016) argues that it can be easy for administrators and teachers to fall into a pattern of finding the
easiest and quickest ways to do things (p.74). As a matter of fact, for example, when things get hectic in a school, he asserts, it
can be easy to defer to what has worked in the past or what is comfortable to the leader; it is critical that leaders make a
conscious effort not to operate under such a motto (Smith, 2016, p. 74).
Applying effective leadership in schools embeds adopting and developing skills while approaching the role of leaders to
prepare, train and develop other school pedagogical actors by increasing individuals‟ knowledge of a range of leadership
approaches, by means of communication, reflection, and interaction with peers in other schools and settings. This includes
leaders‟ acts of mentoring and coaching with a proven track of success in schools. This, in fact, shows how leadership is needed
in schools and to what extent it is indispensable to reconsidering every individual potential energy, by widening their
participatory skills in classes. In this regard, Southworth (2017) asserts that “Identifying leadership talent and potential should
be seen as a part of every school principal‟s responsibilities. Leadership involves the liberation of talent. Some organizations are
poor at managing talent; they stifle potential. Leaders need to ensure they positively manage talent.” Thus, effective education
leadership makes a difference in improving students learning. “There‟s nothing new or especially controversial about that idea.
What‟s far less clear, even after several decades of school renewal efforts, is just how leadership matters, how important those
effects are in promoting the learning of all children, and what the essential ingredients of successful leadership are” (Leithwood
et al., 2017, p. 3). Applying leadership in this sector proves solid evidence that investing in leadership is a trail for large-scale
education improvement that pays off for future individuals. Hence, successful educational leadership and leaders develop
schools and their districts as effective organizations that maintain and develop the performance of principals, administrators,
teachers, and students. In this context, Leithwood et al. (2017) argue that specific practices typically associated with this set of
basics include strengthening district and school cultures, modifying organizational structures and building collaborative
processes; such practices assume that the purpose behind the redesign of organizational cultures and structures is to facilitate the
work of organizational members and that the malleability of structures should match the changing nature of the school‟s
improvement agenda (p. 9). Practices typically associated with this category include strengthening district and school cultures,
modifying organizational structures and building collaborative processes (Leithwood et al., 2017, p. 9).
In identifying schools‟ missions, identities, cultures, and goals within school leadership, teachers‟ engagements in decision
making, including commitments to socializing with parents in a range of potentially powerful community that determines
students learning effectiveness, stand as the primary principle that establishes successful school conditions. For teachers, district
conditions are known to influence student learning that comprises district culture, where the provision of professional
development opportunities are aligned with school district priorities and policies by governing the leadership succession
(Leithwood et al., 2017, p. 13). School districts and other driving factors determine teachers‟ roles in educational leadership
effectiveness. Their pedagogical content knowledge suggests impressive evidence of their professional community by building
up substantial professorate where evidence shows that students' learning pertains to progress by means of monitoring students
through various instructional practices, and involving other school leaders. Leaders of administration, in this context, referring
to principals and headmasters, at best, school managers, often administer teachers‟ achievements and work, and by means of

1
A research on Educational leadership conducted by Professor Geoff Southworth for the International Education of Cambridge
Assessment.

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 International Journal of Advance Study and Research Work (2581-5997)/ Volume 3/Issue 2/February 2020

cyclic inclusion, students. A research on school leadership and management styles conducted by TALIS 2 asserts that “The
conditions of teachers‟ working life are influenced by the administration and leadership provided by principals, and it is widely
assumed that school leadership directly influences the effectiveness of teachers and the achievement outcomes of students”
(2009, p. 191).
This study argues that for the educational systems, to prepare and provide students with the knowledge and skills needed in this
changing world, the roles of school leaders and related expectations have to be radically changed and developed; they are no
longer expected merely to be good managers; effective school leadership is increasingly viewed as key to large-scale education
reform and to improve educational outcomes (2009, p. 191).

2. Challenges and Perspectives of Leadership in Moroccan Education

As stated before, the Moroccan educational system has undergone a massive failure in the many reforms along different stages
which have barely given serious importance to effective leadership as a method of school improvement. The Moroccan
government likewise has not taken fundamental measures to proceed in serious actions in this sector. Initiatives mostly remain
theoretical with hundreds of potential thoughts and queries which have been left unsolved, just as prioritizing this sector has not
been listed top priority of policymakers. Adequate technology integration, efficient teacher training, pertinent syllabus designing
are the assets which are given the bare minimum of attention. Most schools are not equipped with technological devices that
might engage students in a motivational sphere through which audiovisual devices enhance learning. As to the role of the
teacher, being a fundamental element in the educational process, the teacher training remains weak and lacks effectiveness. If
the teacher is effective, then the learning process is going to be fruitful, or, otherwise, the whole educational system is going to
be ruined.
Therefore, improving school effectiveness and leadership can lead to the development of almost all the state sectors and build up
a positive image of the country‟s identity if the education system is given priority by officials in the education sphere. This
would even enhance youth achievements in education and by means of effective leadership in this sector, the whole Moroccan
civil society would be more closely involved in the educational reform. Following this, the results of a Think Tank workshop3
assert that “Improving the quality and inclusivity of the education system would not only increase young people‟s chances in the
labor market and provide the Moroccan state with a better skilled and more productive labor force but would also help reduce
the risks of radicalization and irregular migration” (Fakoussa, & Kabis-Kechrid, 2018, p. 6). To this end, this study recommends
that greater cooperation and knowledge-transfer between the different stakeholders involved in the education sector is strongly
recommended (Fakoussa, & Kabis-Kechrid, 2018, p. 6). Along with this, the Moroccan government should also allow its civil
society to take part in a more targeted way in decision-making processes regarding migration policies, which would be an
important step to address the needs and improve the human rights condition of migrants in Morocco (Fakoussa, & Kabis-
Kechrid, 2018, p. 6).

2. 1. Challenges of Reform in Moroccan Education

The failure to achieve leadership in the Moroccan educational effectiveness is the result of years of unsystematic planning of
strategic visions. The premise to adopt the French education regime and /or overlook the Anglophone educational system has
ranged talks about what educational system to adhere to. The whim to propagate a national identity with smooth openness to the
other cultures in school syllabuses remains an issue that stalks discussions about education, turns it into stagnation, sometimes.
Budgeting enough resources to education reform, with the teacher training as a primordial motif, has been kept revolving around
without clear input. Reports, studies, seminars, and congresses with major queries have left open questions. To this, a study of
the Middle East Online MEO4 brings the various chronic problems that Morocco‟s public education system suffers from,
outlining structural deficiencies that have become more acute. The study primarily highlights the phenomenon of overcrowded
classes within schools, both in primary and secondary levels, which is worsening the system as a major obstacle to school
effectiveness. “This state of the situation is hindering learning and academic achievement and does not achieve the ultimate
goal, namely of quality education” (2017). Adding to this, the problem of teacher training is prone to flat as most unstructured. It
states that a spike in retirements has forced the government to recruit spontaneous contractual staff as an emergency solution,
last-minute recruitment that had a negative impact on the quality of education due to insufficient training (2017).
As stated in the first section, one of the major deficiencies of the educational system in Morocco is the failure to give this sector
enough importance. The project on the promotion of think tank work in the MENA, which is advanced by the GCFR, states that

2
TALIS. (2009). Leading to learn: School leadership and management styles. Effective Teaching and Learning Environments,
OECD. Retrieved from: https://www.oecd.org.
3
A workshop of “Promotion of Think Tank Work on Migration and Socio-Economic Challenges in Morocco,” organized by the
German Council on Foreign Relations‟ Middle East and North Africa Program in the winter of 2017 and the spring of 2018.
Fakoussa, D., Kabis-Kechrid, L. (2018). Socio-Economic Challenges in Morocco: Migration, Education, and Employment -
Perspectives from the Region and Europe (eds). Auswartiges, IFA: German Council on Foreign Relations.
4
Middle East Online Meo. (2017). Morocco‟s public education system suffers from chronic problems. Retrieved from:
https://middle-east-online.com/en/morocco%E2%80%99s-public-education-system-suffers-chronic-problems.

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in 2012, when the Haut-Commissariat au Plan (HCP, the public body in charge of surveys and statistics) conducted a survey to
determine which forms of welfare could positively impact living conditions in Morocco, education unequivocally emerged as a
priority for 78 percent of Moroccans, ahead of proximity to schools (58 percent), medical coverage (49 percent) proximity to
health facilities (38 percent), and the quality of health services (36 percent). (Fakoussa, & Kabis-Kechrid, 2018, p. 37). This
study shows that despite the several reforms of the past twenty years, the quality of Moroccan education has remained strikingly
deficient and ranks particularly poorly in many disciplines, even when compared to countries with similar economic, social, and
demographic characteristics: “In 2011, the PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) study revealed that 79
percent of Moroccan students‟ literacy was below the low benchmark, meaning that four out of five students are close to
illiterate. This rate was 76 percent in mathematics, meaning that three out of four students have no knowledge in this field”
(Fakoussa, & Kabis-Kechrid, 2018, p. 38). It is reported that most of these deficiencies have been the results of the lack of
educational innovation, absence of the quality of the curricula and governance problems, and most importantly is the lack of
coordination among stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education, public schools, civic society organizations, funding
bodies, teachers, students, and families. This is, in fact, the outcome of the last decades of education experience which shows the
failure of many “strategic reforms” that have cost billions of dirhams (43 billion, according to the Moroccan Court of Auditors)5
(Fakoussa, & Kabis-Kechrid, 2018, p. 39). Another deficiency in this sector, according to this study, is the difficulty of the civil
society organizations in creating networks and collectives to act as qualified and recognized partners, making it difficult for the
ministry of education to communicate and coordinate with civil society as they do not have, only with limited human, material,
and financial resources, the required organizational, economic, or functional resources to share their best practices and replicate
them on a wider scale (Fakoussa, & Kabis-Kechrid, 2018, p. 39).
Challenges of the Moroccan educational system strikes gravely even after several reforms as school achievements and success
remain undeveloped. Most school syllabuses revolve around traditional traits mostly abiding by the same political and
ideological guidelines, missing such a splendid spirit of openness. Most teachers, lacking solid training on pedagogy and
didactics, seem flat to routine teaching cycle. University students are sent to the job market without enough tenable skills for the
market place, and, thus, left unemployed. Some forms of education disappointments including the ministry‟s failure to live up to
its optimistic prospects are significantly introduced when exposing the slogan “School of Success,” created by officials and the
failure of the National Charter for Education and Training which led to what is known as the Emergency Plan, that spanned
from 2009 to 2012. The implementation of this program, Harrizi (2012) maintains, is based on an approach “Project”, which
aims to place the learner at the heart of the System of Education and Training and to the other pillars to its service; that is, the
designers decided that the implementation of the Emergency Program will necessarily be a break with past practices, by
adopting such new approach based on a Project Approach (p.2).
El Kaidi further explains that the Emergency Plan was considered a roadmap that outlined the practical steps that needed to be
taken to restore confidence in the public school system and rectify the gaps left by the NCET:
Its establishment was based on the results of a report done by the Supreme Council for Education, Training
and Scientific Research in 2008. The plan had an estimated budget of MAD 33 billion ($3.5 billion), most of
which the state provided. This large budget was unprecedented in the history of reforms in Morocco,
providing an opportunity for the government to renew most of the dilapidated educational infrastructure and
provide it with the necessary equipment; however, the money was spent neither responsible nor transparently
(2018).
Another failure found in a report released in 2012 by the Ministry of Education, El Kaidi asserts, revealed that the Emergency
Plan had many shortcomings, eventually the absence of a participatory and contractual approach to project implementation, and
the lack of transparency in managing financial matters, which led to its inevitable deficiency (2018). He contends that after the
failure of the Emergency Plan, the Supreme Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research initiated in 2015 a new
strategic vision for educational reform that currently extends to 2030, which calls for the establishment of a new school system
based on equity, equality, opportunity, and quality for all, and the advancement of the individual and society (2018). This last
initiative, though it appears promising, goes through the same challenges and hence rises questions of radical changes that invite
policymakers to set forth new serious measures of new visions.
After the introduction of the Emergency Plan, the Supreme Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research and the
Council of Education's “Strategic Vision for the Reform of the Moroccan School” through successive governments along the
recent years, the implementation of structural adjustments to increase access to education with the idea to improve the education
system remains shameless regarding unpromising results that eventually yield into few solutions. Following this, Morocco, in a
report released by the World Economic Forum in 2015, El Amraoui argues, is placed at 101 out of 140 countries in quality of
education index (2018). Accordingly, he contends that a UNESCO report released in 2014 states that Morocco was ranked
among the 21 worst countries in the field of education, with more than half of students in public schools failing to acquire
necessary reading and maths skills (2018). These deficiencies inside the school mostly reflect social disparity which is widening

5
Samir Chaouki, “Une escroquerie à 43 MMDH,” Les Eco, quoted in Fakoussa, D., Kabis-Kechrid, L. (2018). Socio-Economic
Challenges in Morocco: Migration, Education, and Employment -Perspectives from the Region and Europe (eds). Auswartiges,
IFA: German Council on Foreign Relations.

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with the growth of private schools as higher-income families increasingly opt to pay for better services, threatening those who
rely on free and quality education: “Despite high tuition costs, the number of those shifting from public to private schools
soared from 4 percent in 1999 to 15 percent in 2015” (2018). A further problem, shown in this study, in this sector is basically a
new draft bill introduced by the government, which aims at putting an end to free education in the kingdom which proposes that
preschool, primary and secondary education should remain free of charge for all Moroccans, but suggests registration fees for
high schools and universities for middle and high-income families: “The draft law has angered parents and education syndicates,
who consider the move a violation of Moroccan citizens' right to free education” ( 2018).
One of the problems of education in Morocco has always been the French language which was first introduced as a language of
the colonizer and started to trunk different sectors of administration and schools and later replaced Arabic, and eventually posed
troubles for the English language to rise. Since the beginning of French protectorate, the francophone policy with its French
culture impacts on North African was high just as the language was considered more favorably than Arabic, and perceived as
sophisticated and modern. Advanced by the postcolonial governments, Francophone policy created a two-sided country with
often contradictory ideological and political orientations 6, where conservative parties and religious leaders advocated the
implementation of Arabization, by which they mean “replacing French, the language of the colonizer with Arabic, the language
of tradition and authenticity.”7 Zouhir (2014) asserts that according to the plans of the political forces, the conservative paradigm
of language policy in Morocco is oriented around the theoretical understanding that multilingualism is a major obstacle to
political and economic development of Morocco: “It views Berber as an obstacle to individual and national development;
therefore, Berber speakers need to be fully assimilated in the Arabic Moroccan identity for economic and cultural development.
This theoretical orientation justifies the implementation of Arabization, which is seen as an integral part of Moroccan unity”
(Zouhir, 2014, p. 44). Along with this, Zouhir argues that among the plans of the political forces behind the Arabization drive,
all Moroccans are supposed to speak Arabic, while the local dialects of Berber are supposed to disappear, in due course; thus,
the Arabization policy with Standard Arabic applied in all spheres has led to a conflict with the Berber-speaking population,
which has been disadvantaged and its identity suppressed or marginalized (2014, p. 44). The article concludes by affirming that
the Arabization language policy proponents continued to ignore the undisputed fact that Morocco has a multilingual population.
We can deduce that the problem of language implementation in the educational system has posed a deficiency to school
effectiveness. In the Moroccan educational system, it is not yet determined which language should champion the teaching-
learning cycle because a political determination has yet fluctuated between the political ambivalent ideologies of the state and
the unstructured school syllabuses and most importantly the ambiguous role of teachers in the classroom.
Very often, teachers have long been accused of being the main pedagogical actors that have made the Moroccan educational
system transcend and override most classroom learning problems. Believed to be far from being leaders in their classroom, most
teachers do not seem to act as supporters, mentors, facilitators, and providers of substantial skills that shape modern approaches
and methods to learning and teaching for students. With the continuous failure of the educational system in Morocco, it is
assumed that some teachers are not highly qualified in terms of the educational sciences, psychology, and didactics as they
prove unable to cope with most classroom learning contexts. Also, parents are being responsible for this failure as the school
milieu has been badly extended by parental upbringing and their social environment that mostly reflect negative attitudes. By the
same token, it is believed that students lose motivation, and concentration on getting knowledge, learning new strategies, skills,
and techniques that can ameliorate their competencies.

2.2. Perspectives of Educational Advancement in Morocco

Along the different stages of reform mentioned before, the education system in Morocco, a USAID report8 shows, has faced
significant challenges where drop-out rates are still high and only 53 percent of students enrolled in middle school continue on
to high school and less than 15 percent of first-grade students are likely to graduate from high school. (USAID from the
American People. Education,2019). According to this report, low levels of daily attendance, teacher absenteeism, and a multi-
lingual environment at school contribute to the low literacy rates in Morocco. These would not enable students to complete a
high school education, which can only guarantee them fewer employment opportunities. Given these statistics, Morocco has
undertaken significant reform programs to increase the rate of access to education with the idea to improve educational
effectiveness. With the aim to strengthen the capacity of teachers, school administrators, and officials, by printing and
distributing teaching and learning materials, USAID, together with the Moroccan government and other implementing agencies
have worked to improve education quality, as measured by learner performance in early-grade reading. Impacts in this sector
include: (USAID from the American People. Education,2019).
 12,000 students were reached with the new reading method.

6
Youssi (1995) quoted in Zouhir, A. (2014). Language policy and state in morocco: The status of berber. Digest of Middle East
Studies, 23(1), 37–53.
7
Marley, (2004) quoted in Zouhir, A. (2014). Language policy and state in morocco: The status of berber. Digest of Middle East
Studies, 23(1), 37–53.
8
USAID From the American People. Education. Retrieved from: https://www.usaid.gov/morocco/education.

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 International Journal of Advance Study and Research Work (2581-5997)/ Volume 3/Issue 2/February 2020

 Over 340 teachers have been trained on the reading instruction approach and provided with the instructional material
kits.
 Educational software for deaf children was completed and distributed to nine associations for the deaf across Morocco.
 First-Ever Early Grade Reading and Sign Language Assessment developed, tested, and implemented in 10 schools for
deaf students.
 A Steering Committee formed and coached to lead the program and lobby for the rights of deaf children to equitable
access to education
 Starting in the 2017-2018 school year, the Ministry would embark on the nationwide implementation of the phonics-
based approach for reading instruction for grades 1 and 2
It is noticed that new venues and perspectives have centered these focal attempts with the aim to move the country onward by
virtue of sharpening leadership skills in the education sector. To this, perspectives about Moroccan school effectiveness require
substantial measures and serious intentions of the state. Fakoussa and Kabis-Kechrid (2018) assert that it is necessary to
implement a participatory approach that must draw primarily from field experience, and mainly from the NGOs, which represent
a critical link in the educational value chain, and whose innovative approaches are crucial for any ambitious yet realistic reforms
to reach its objectives for the strategic vision 2015-2030 (p. 40). These reforms are demonstrated by NGOs‟ adaptive
management, their inclusive approach (involving parents, teachers, the ministry of education, and private companies), and their
focus on project evaluation, which is a prerequisite from any fund provider (Fakoussa, & Kabis-Kechrid, 2018, p. 41):
It is, therefore, necessary to establish an efficient mechanism which would help to: identify the best practices
implemented by NGOs, and share them with the most relevant stakeholders; accompany stakeholders in the
replication process, either by NGOs or public authorities (the MoE); and evaluate the impact. Stakeholders
must act pragmatically, which means that public bodies such as the MoE and schools must undergo a change
of mentality, especially in terms of bureaucracy and decision-making.
This study contends that the various stakeholders must undertake all necessary efforts to provide the Commission (or the
Council) with the most relevant information, which means that NGOs may need to follow training modules that can be put in
place and supervised by the above-mentioned Commission. Also, the Commission must build on the work of other institutional
bodies, such as the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), the Council on Higher Education (CSE), and the
HCP, and try to involve them wherever they can make a useful contribution (Fakoussa, & Kabis-Kechrid, 2018, p. 41).
Other measures have taken place with enough enthusiasm to bring concrete actions to the fore especially those substantial acts
that fall under the umbrella of recent councils, and charts. The Supreme Council for Education, Training, and Scientific
Research (the NCET), which came into force in 2000 under the auspices of King Mohammed VI, El Kaidi (2018) contends,
declared the decade 2000-2009 to be the “Decade of Education,” and many officials placed educational reform as the second-
highest priority for the country, behind territorial integrity. He asserts that unlike previous reforms, which were forced on the
Moroccan school system without consultation or in-depth study, many Moroccans had high hopes in the NCET because it was
meticulously detailed, well-thought-out, and implementable. Eventually, these measures would change the course of the country
in the years to come by means of revising traditional thoughts of old reforms. It is becoming, even, an urgency to call for the
introduction of comprehensive policies to meet the country‟s socio-economic expectations which are essential not only for the
country‟s education but also for its development and stability.
As the difficulty to integrate English as the main language in the Moroccan educational system stands as one of the major
challenges, stated earlier in this section, one of the measures that should be taken to promote the effectiveness of education in
Morocco is the wide integration of this language in the sphere of education just as a response of a multilingual state to the flow
of globalization. Recently, and as English is gaining ground in Morocco, many institutions have urged the implementation of the
language in various sectors. Zouhir (2014) argues that with the increasing importance of the use of English in business in
Morocco and the interest of many English-speaking companies, there has also been an enormous increase of Moroccan business
people learning English, and the establishment of many private institutions where the teaching instruction is in English (p.44).
As Morocco is a multilingual country where language use carries social, cultural, economic, and political significations, the
integration of English as a strong language that has aimed to create a drastic reduction of the space of French in education, has
become a necessity, and, thus, a part of an educational reform that also targets to develop the country.

3. Recommendations and Implications

The analysis of the literature surrounding the significant leadership styles has indicated that leadership is most effective when it
is implemented in an interconnected model. Relationships form the basis of strong leadership by involving educators, learners,
parents and civic society organizations can propagate school leaders who will be able to successfully utilize an integrated model
in modern education.
Following the leadership style ineffective education, there are several conclusions to be drawn as to sustain serious
developments in this sector, which, in turn, would guarantee access to a world of globalization of both education and business.
For the Moroccan educational system to follow the paradigms of effective leadership in education, there are four interrelated
layers to be highlighted. These can be listed as the state‟s serious intention to develop this sector through its governments, the
revising of the pedagogical body and syllabuses, reconsidering the teacher training, and, last but not least, the parental

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 International Journal of Advance Study and Research Work (2581-5997)/ Volume 3/Issue 2/February 2020

upbringing and the functioning of the civil society organizations. All these layers are interconnected, meaning a radical change
in education.
It is high time for the policymakers to turn charts to the latest councils, especially The Supreme Council for Education, Training
and Scientific Research, into practice by applying its major guidelines -- some of them already mentioned in this paper. They
have to take initiatives that mostly turn the most successful education theories into action. The government should prioritize this
sector by building serious communication with educators and civil society organizations, and also offering enough structure for
good schooling. More, political parties should work outside the circle of ideologies that would lessen efficiency in this sector.
Therefore, educators, being the main body in the educational sphere, should reconsider traditional ways of approaching the
learning/teaching cycle by offering alternative possibilities of new pedagogy; a pedagogy that activates a successful triangular
collaboration among all pedagogical actors. These people should be responsible for the syllabus which can be revisited by
implementing a philosophy of openness into the globalized world, where opportunities are given to modern languages, sciences,
and cultures. School programs should prelude to a new generation that can be able to access worldwide business, politics, and
acculturation.
The teacher, being at the heart of this cycle, should hold continuous training that would guarantee a professional career that
assists in bringing the students to the education standards. In doing so, teachers should be exposed to the latest methods and
approaches of teaching which allow them access to update traditional teaching ways, thus, getting students, in turn, to states of
good citizens. The teacher‟s job as a leader is to determine the best ways to communicate with students, and increasingly
provide the ability to take into consideration different learning styles while doing so. He/she must be able to incorporate various
modes of communication to serve a range of learners by determining the individual needs of each student, which, in turn, will
make teachers more aware of their teaching styles, and help them incorporate differently, but appropriate elements into lessons.
Effective leadership in successful education can also be achieved through the substantial role of the civil society organization by
means of collaborating with all pedagogical actors in this sector. This collaboration includes bridging the gaps between the
government departments and the body of pedagogy in different regions especially by facilitating communication and offering
alternations for better education. By the same gesture, parents should play a crucial role in bringing their children towards an
environment of leadership full of inspiration and motivation. Being a helping hand in their educational journey with enough and
true inspiration, parental upbringing would guarantee a balance of education at home and school that molds a student‟s actual
learning.

Conclusion
As a conclusion, it is asserted that many studies and reviews have found out that the integration of leadership models in the
educational sphere has turned out to be a necessity. It has become obvious that through an intensive review of leadership
literature, leadership styles play an indispensable role in positive educational outcomes and in the advancement of positive
school culture, by means of having leaners as future leaders with business and communication at large. Leadership styles
revolve round layers that are crucial to effective leaders who can successfully contribute to managerial assets in school by means
of highlighting human resource potentials.
In the Moroccan situation, school developments require these leadership styles with the most dynamic nature that has a great
effect on the teaching/ learning cycle and a double effect on both the teacher and the learner. Teachers with full commitments
will surely contribute to the advancement of students learning cycle. By doing so, these teachers, with enough skills of
leadership styles, will be committed to the well-being of future leaders and will be important assets to affect their schools with a
positive culture.

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