Scandalous, unbearable, and anti-pedagogical. That is the least that can be said about the situation in which 205 students from the rural commune of Meskala in Essaouira have continued to study for the third consecutive year. Indeed, the students of the Mahmoud Darwich middle school are studying in the premises of a dilapidated building that served as a café/inn for the patients of a famous healer in the region.

Students, teachers, administrative staff, and parents are dismayed and frustrated by the blockage of the middle school construction project, which has not progressed for almost a year now. Admittedly, the work has already exceeded 50%, but the situation has been stagnant for several months due to the non-payment of the architect's fees by the services of the AREF Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz.

According to confirmed sources, the departure of the former director of the AREF has something to do with this blockage, which requires the completion of the formalities and visas required for payment.

Furthermore, this duality that characterises the management mode of the credits allocated to the projects of the regional delegations raises several questions.

Why does the AREF reserve the right to manage the credits of certain delegation projects while it cedes others to them? What are the criteria that justify and regularise this duality? Why does the AREF entrust the monitoring of the work to the delegations when it is the one that awarded the contract? What image will the parents of the Mahmoud Darwich middle school students have of a delegation that has no answers to provide them because it depends on the AREF services? Where do we stand with the discourse on deconcentration and regionalisation?

"We still do not understand why the AREF keeps for itself credits that are initially allocated to the programmes of the Ministry of National Education's delegations. The worst part is that this management mode of the credits is not subject to any logic, because the AREF can keep the credits of one middle school and cede those of another to the delegation. Unfortunately, this situation continues to create problems in terms of monitoring, payment, and accountability," a union official in Essaouira told us.

For some parents and inhabitants of the region, the competent services should even review the location of the project. They affirmed to Libé that the new unfinished building, probably located on a riverbed, was flooded during the last bad weather.

However, the 205 students from the communes of Meskala and Sidi L'jazouli, their 10 teachers, the general supervisor, and the principal will continue to pay the price for anarchic management, within a dilapidated building.