“I am interested in the solutions that e-learning offers for developing countries”

Ahmed El Moussaoui has been vice-rector of Morocco's Université Abdelmalek Essaâdi (UAE) since 1994. He has long been aware of the importance of information and communication technology (ICT). Before taking up his current position, he worked as a professor of microwave electronics, specifically modelling language circuits.

Ahmed El Moussaoui has been vice-rector of Morocco's Université Abdelmalek Essaâdi (UAE) since 1994. He has long been aware of the importance of information and communication technology (ICT). Before taking up his current position, he worked as a professor of microwave electronics, specifically modelling language circuits.

It would seem that he was destined to understand something that remains a mystery to many Moroccans: ICT. Nonetheless, he is convinced that there is the desire from politicians to see it spread throughout the country. "As vice-rector, I have made great efforts to see it applied, even when this affected my free time", he confesses. A sign of this is the digital literacy programme being carried out at the UAE, with help from the UOC's Campus for Peace and Solidarity, which looks to spread knowledge and tools relating to ICT, as well as offering e-learning, in a range of areas including universities, civil society, schools and the general public. Indeed, I am familiar with ICT thanks to my academic career, but, likewise, I carried out my studies in Europe and, thus, I have a wide-ranging experience of different cultures and ICT. As a university manager, my aim has been to find out more about distance education, the level of interest, the prospects and solutions it offers for developing countries, and how to adapt new technologies in terms of language, culture and the local and national context. Currently, Morocco is opening up to all that relating to ICT. I think this is due to its proximity to Europe and thanks to the raised awareness of the country's decision makers, who have realised the importance of ICT. Now, all this is to be articulated on a national scale. One of the projects being developed for the short term, with support from the Ministry of Higher Education, involves the setting up of infrastructure, training (which requires human resources) and contents to provide the solutions needed by the number of students here. Yes, the desire of the politicians is clear: part of the budget is to be dedicated to creating the basic infrastructure and searching for the human resources needed, ie, computer engineers, which requires money. Usually, those that we find want high salaries and prefer the private sector. For this reason, university professors are being trained, as we can be sure that they will remain in the public sector. This is the idea behind the joint project with the UOC and other Spanish and European universities. For example, here in Morocco, the Ministry wants to create a Moroccan virtual campus, which it did not want to assign to one single university, in order to avoid the others feeling discriminated against. Thus, this project has been designed to involve cooperation between all the public universities (there are fourteen) in order to set up a library and joint training of experts. We believe in cooperation. Other projects include those belonging to the European Union's Tempus programme, where work with Spanish and European universities is prioritised, due to their proximity. No, before launching this Moroccan virtual campus project, those responsible at the Ministry studied different projects to create a virtual university, but the studies showed that there was some reticence on the part of other universities who also wanted to take part. A general meeting is held each year in Morocco involving all the universities belonging to the virtual campus, where they contribute everything they have produced. It began in 2003, with a meeting in Agadir. Since then and over these last two years we have been training experts and have now virtually reached the end of this training plan. Some universities have started to carry out virtual courses, which we are not carrying out yet. We are developing them. These courses are in a trial period and can involve any subject. The professors can count on support from experts from the university resources centre and, if this is not enough, they can request help from the Moroccan virtual campus. The main advantage, compared with other universities, has been the level of awareness. The UOC project has already trained over fifty professors who responded to a questionnaire sent out to a total of six hundred and sixty. In the end, seventy-four signed up. It has been a success because these courses were for the trainers of trainers, which means that, from now on, these professors will be able to train students. Yes, this has been the choice. We have first looked for national experts who can then train others at other universities. Yes, it has been a voluntary offer. Science professors have been those who have signed up in greatest numbers. Scientists adapt well to new technology. There have also been those from the human sciences field, thanks to the nature of their disciplines. A lot of work is still required to raise awareness so that they can make better use of distance education in this field. It is a question of time and programming. Our aim is to work in order to train professors in all subjects, and the administrative staff as well. This project gets right to the heart of the problem: digital literacy. The level of satisfaction of the tutors who took part has been high. What's more, we have seen two of the Moroccan professors who completed the first course already coordinating a group in the second course (they have acted as trainers of trainers). I have been fortunate in that I have known about the UOC and its long history for some time and I knew that the result of this joint project would be good. The professors who signed up were not fully aware of what was involved. This was not a problem during the first phase, but in the future subject-based projects need to be offered; ie, projects related to the subjects that affect them directly in order to motivate them. The management staff have been trained to use tools such as Dreamweaver and to write web pages, which is very useful. With regard to the teaching staff, they had a programme with eight modules involving subjects such as knowledge of the platform used to develop the online tasks or authorisation of groups. The best way for people to learn is for them to be involved. This has been the aim of this course, as the professors have had to roll up their sleeves and work directly on the subject. We think that it is a well-focused programme. It has to be taken into account that we are dealing with mature, professional people, professors, and we have to make it attractive. This is what will ensure future success. Many of our students are studying distance education courses from foreign universities and they have to pay for them. With regard to strategy, the Ministry wants to respond to the needs of the majority of Moroccans. In our university's Legal, Economic and Social Sciences department alone, we have ten thousand students. There is an imbalance in terms of the demand. For example, one of the ways of avoiding the construction of new buildings to hold this volume of students is to introduce e-learning in order to offer classes over the internet in the future. Yes and no. We may be able to save on the one hand, as we will not have to build so much, but, on the other hand, we will have to invest. We need a good infrastructure, a good network, we have to pay for good connections and we also need good content. Access to scientific research journals, for example, is very expensive, though formulae for subscribing as a group do exist. Morocco is very important in this respect. It is highly valued. It is second in Africa, behind South Africa, and ahead of Egypt, in terms of publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The project with the UOC has started very well, but we need to continue for longer in order to be able to assess it. We are continuing to work with the Catalan Agency for Cooperation and Development, as the project also involves civil society and NGOs. ICT is versatile and we feel that we should use it as a tool for more things. We are working on an idea to carry out more projects, such as one to offer Berber language classes and another in the field of jurisprudence. It is a comparative study of the Moudawana family code in Morocco and Catalan family law, to 'reach' mixed families. It is to involve experts from the UOC, but we are also open to other partners.