The National Status of the Student-Entrepreneur: a new system for improving the employability of graduates in Morocco

Abstract

This article is interested in challenging the actions undertaken by the Moroccan university in order to promote the improvement of the employability of its students, especially since the unemployment rate of graduates has reached according to the national statistics communicated by the High Commission for the Plan in 2021 a rate of 19.6%. In this context, the establishment, in December 2018, by the Moroccan government authority in charge of higher education of the "National Status of the Student-Entrepreneur" constitutes an innovative educational device, which reinforces and further energizes the action entrepreneurial-student in our universities.

This new government initiative tries to find an institutional solution to this problem of graduate unemployment in Morocco and also offers Moroccan students an entrepreneurial education and an alternative for their professional integration by replacing wage labor with self-employment.

Thus, through a descriptive analysis of the data, the article proposes to draw up the inventory and to analyze the achievements induced by the establishment of this "National Status of the Student-Entrepreneur" at the level of the Moroccan university during the period 2019-2022. The results of this study are promising and testify to a great potential existing within Moroccan universities in terms of human capital (students, teachers, partners), but also in terms of infrastructure appropriate to this objective. The institutionalization of this new device has effectively worked towards the strengthening and revitalization of entrepreneurship within the Moroccan university with short-term and long-term objectives.

Keywords: National Status of the Student-Entrepreneur; Employability; Graduate unemployment; Moroccan University.

Classification JEL: L26, M13

Paper type: Theoretical research