In order to meet an increasingly growing demand for training in new professions, such as marketing, IT, communication, commerce, and design, many professionals and financial institutions have invested in these promising niches, knowing full well that families are ready to pay the price for their children to obtain the precious key that opens the doors to employment. The city of Marrakech has thus become one of the most attractive and popular destinations for businessmen, both national and foreign, wishing to invest in this buoyant sector. This enthusiasm is explained by the fact that the ochre city is experiencing rapid development on all levels and is attracting new companies and new capital that contribute to the development of the region. According to statistics from the supervisory ministry, Marrakech occupies third place in terms of the number of private higher education establishments after Casablanca and Rabat. Dozens of large-scale projects in this sector have recently emerged in the city and others are on the horizon. It must be said that the evolution of the private higher education landscape in Marrakech has been rapid and recent. Indeed, before 2005, there were only four or five major schools sharing a market that is becoming increasingly restricted. Today, there are more than 15 higher education schools engaged in fierce competition to nibble away at a market share that is shrinking over the years.

A young sector in Morocco, private higher education has developed essentially over the last two decades. Currently, the Kingdom has approximately 180 private higher education establishments capable of accommodating more than 50,000 students. In a statement to the newspaper "Le Matin", Moulay Ahmed Lamrani, President of the Marrakech section of the Union of Private Education and Training in Morocco (UEFPM), believes from the outset that the sector greatly needs to be regulated. "The Education and Training Charter set as a quantitative objective for the private sector 20% of the total number of students by 2010. It is currently at nearly 5%, whereas three years ago it was at 7%. This notorious regression is essentially due to the repercussions of the international crisis," he said. Private higher education constitutes a major challenge for the human and economic development of our country. It is a carrier of a salutary increase in the training offer at a time when public higher education is facing a crisis due to increasing flows of students. The sector, which has seen great advances, however, suffers from numerous problems that block it and prevent it from fulfilling its noble mission, notably a notorious deficiency in terms of consultation and harmonisation at the level of its various components, but also between the sector and the supervisory ministry. Responding to a question on a probable consultation with economic actors in the development of curricula with a view to ensuring high employability for graduates, Moulay Ahmed Lamrani stressed "that no training structure can claim to live in autarky far from the economic actors who operate in its environment." According to him, private higher education is constantly listening to the labour market, hence the need for openness to economic actors and the establishment of solid and permanent bridges, in order to guarantee exchange between the two parties. Embracing the contours of the market. The enthusiasm for private higher education, a sector in full growth, draws its sources from a particular situation, characterised notably by the congestion of public universities which have not known how to evolve to adapt their offer to the demand of the labour market, high tuition fees, the absence of barriers to entry, and a tax exemption during the first five years for any new opening of a school or university establishment. These are all reasons to attract investors always in search of lucrative markets, concluded Moulay Ahmed Lamrani.

Indeed, the Moroccan private higher education sector continues to attract foreign investment funds. After HEM, which recently welcomed the International Finance Corporation (IFC, a subsidiary of the World Bank) into its capital, it is the turn of the Private University of Marrakech (UPM), which was among the first establishments to obtain the title of Private University in Morocco, to raise 70 million dirhams from the European investment fund ADP II.