School dropout is one of the greatest evils of the education system in Morocco. To fight against this scourge, the Ministry of National Education and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have joined forces and launched within the framework of the Itqane project, which aims to improve training to promote quality in national education, a multitude of actions that aim to encourage the schooling of children and to combat failure and school dropout at the level of Moroccan middle schools. "Certainly, the Moroccan government is making considerable efforts to fight against school dropout, however, the figures remain very worrying. Indeed, in Morocco, some 360,000 students leave school prematurely each year and find themselves victims of precariousness and social exclusion. It is for this reason that with the Moroccan government, we have joined our efforts to combat this scourge and encourage the schooling of children," explains John Groarke, director of USAID in Morocco. In this context, the Directorate of Non-Formal Education (DENF) of the Ministry of National Education and the Itqane project of USAID, organised on 23 May in Fez, a Forum on the fight against school dropout, where it was a question of presenting the results of a research work led by young people and focused on them, entitled "Youth Speak". It is, in fact, a study on school dropout which was conducted by 24 young people, including students and young people who have left school, belonging to six different provinces of the Kingdom. These young people had the opportunity to establish their own diagnosis of the school dropout situation, to share their perspectives on the factors that influence the decision to drop out with stakeholders in the field of school dropout, and to propose actions which, according to them, could reduce the rate.

"We wanted to involve young people directly in the design of this work and ensure that their opinion is taken into consideration. "Youth Speak" is a research activity centred on young people and led by them," specifies Christina N'Tchougan-Sonou, director of the Itqane project.