One number says it all. In 2022, 1,647 companies have benefited special training contracts (CSF), the main public mechanism for financing continuing education in the private sector. A record, certainly, over a decade. But compared to the 315,000 contributing companies, this peak barely represents 0.5% of the pool. Far, very far, from the objective of training annually 20% of employees that was set by the National Vocational Training Strategy 2015-2021. This dropout is not a temporary anomaly: it illustrates, according to the EESC, “structural inadequacies which limit access to systems and reduce their equity as well as their reach”.
The opinion, adopted by a majority during the 180th ordinary session of the Council held on March 25, 2026, is the result of a self-referral carried out for more than a year, with hearings of ministers, unions, employers’ federations, universities and experts. It draws up a lucid assessment of a system which, despite real progress, particularly in the automobile and aeronautics sectors, has not kept its promises. He formulated a reform program which, if implemented, would constitute a profound break with current practices.
The great paradox: billions collected, crumbs redistributed
For very small and small businesses (TPME)although declared “priority targets” of the system, the situation borders on the absurd. Over ten years, these companies only received 622 million dirhams in total for CSF reimbursements, i.e. less than the 30% share of a single year of TFP. On average, 62 million dirhams per year go to SMEs out of an annual cake of 2.7 billion, or 2.3% of annual contributions for companies which represent the bulk of the national economic fabric.
The EESC thus underlines the profound inequality in the distribution of funding : it is large companies that benefit the most. In 2014, they received 67.51 million dirhams compared to 27.26 million for all other companies combined. A gap which narrowed slightly in 2022 (73.44 million against 57.90 million), but remains structural. Even more revealing: companies with more than 500 employees trained 47,932 employees, or nearly 25% of the workforce trained, while those with fewer than 10 employees trained only 18,540.
How to explain this paradox? By an accumulation of obstacles that the report describes with precision. Reimbursement deadlines, firstly: nine months on average at best between the submission of the file and the actual payment of the sums committed. Procedural complexity, then: obtain CSF financing involves successively going through the management committee, the OFPPT board of directors, the central committee of the CSFs, the regional committees, the GIACs and the joint management units. “In many cases, companies simply give up filing an application,” notes the notice. And when they venture to commission a sectoral engineering study, the average time between budget approval and actual delivery reaches up to two years, two years in a world where digital skills become obsolete in eighteen months.
The consequence is documented by an international comparison scathing. A study of the World Bank on businesses in 2023 reveals that only 9% of Moroccan companies offer official training to their employees. Against 67.9% in France, 55.9% in Canada, 44.1% in Germany, and even 26.7% in Tunisia. Morocco is among the worst performing countries in the MENA region on this indicator.
Excluded en masse: self-employed, unemployed, workers without a diploma
Law No. 60-17 of 2018although presented as a turning point, has certainly extended the scope of beneficiaries to non-employees and people who have lost their jobs. But the CESE emphasizes that “this ambitious extension of the field of beneficiaries was not accompanied by the establishment of a diversified and shared financing model commensurate with the resulting needs”. More serious: the implementing texts of this law have still not been publishedeight years after its promulgation. As for people who have lost their job, the job loss compensation (IPE) system does not include continuing training among the services intended for them.
The training offer itself suffers from a striking geographical concentration. On the 82 approved organizations And 327 qualified experts of the country, the majority are in Casablanca. This territorial imbalance “disadvantages companies located outside the main economic centers and contributes to accentuating regional disparities,” notes the opinion.
A breakthrough reform: independent body, dedicated fund, digital platform
Faced with this picture, the EESC is not proposing marginal adjustments. He calls for systemic reform, articulated around seventeen recommendations which, taken together, constitute a paradigm shift. The flagship measure is institutional: create a national body independent of the OFPPT, with tripartite composition, public authorities, employers, social partners, to manage the entire continuing training policy. This recommendation directly resonates with the new development model, measure no. 7 of which specifically recommends the creation of an independent body distinct from training operators. It also echoes the circular from the Head of Government of February 2025 which recommends “the delegation of the management of continuing training to a dedicated structure” and “the establishment of the company into a true continuing training space”.
On a financial level, the EESC recommends guarantee the effective allocation of 30% of the TFP, currently dispersed without clear direction, to the financing of continuing training actions, via the creation of a dedicated fund. For VSEs, it recommends full coverage of training costs, with direct access to a catalog of modules available on a national digital platform covering the entire life cycle of a training action, from request to reimbursement. On the VAEPthe issue is of a completely different magnitude. The EESC calls for deploy the OFPPT as an “operational arm of a VAEP for all”by capitalizing on its territorial network to mobilize professional juries on a national scale. The objective: to make the validation of acquired knowledge a real path to formality for the hundreds of thousands of workers without a diploma, like the integrated public service “France VAE”, launched in 2022.
These recommendations are part of a context of rapid transformation of the Moroccan labor marketaccentuated by the sporting deadlines of 2030, the rise of industrial and digital professions, and the Kingdom’s climate commitments. The question is no longer whether the system needs to change. It is to know whether the political will will be there so that continuing training ceases to be, in Morocco, a right on paper and finally becomes a lever in reality.
