Language Planning and Policy in Education: Exploring the Impact of Organic Laws on Enforcing the Amazigh Language Teaching in Morocco

Abstract

Language planning is a problem-solving process usually undertaken by national governments and is intended to affect literacy practices within a given society. On the other hand, language policy plays a pivotal role in developing theoretical linguistic policies that target shaping or reshaping the social, cultural, and political identity of nations. Given the interrelation between these two notions, it is significant to state that Morocco has implemented several language policies since its independence. The various reforms to Morocco's education system have consistently highlighted the status of languages in education. Actually, the integration of Tamazight into the Moroccan education system began in 2003. To some extent, Amazigh activism, language research, and the royal will have played pivotal roles in the evolution of both the Amazigh language's status and its teaching. In fact, several studies have tackled Tamazight language teaching and learning from different perspectives. The current study intends to analyze the adapted top-down model of language policy and explore the distinct factors that estimate or underestimate Tamazight across social, political, cultural, and economic domains. Similarly, it seeks to examine the impact of the macro-level decisions on the status of Tamazight in the Moroccan education system. Furthermore, this study aims to determine whether successive governments since Ajdir’s king's speech in 2001 have served or hindered the standardization of this 'national heritage'. More specifically, the overall rationale for this study is to examine the variance between the macro and micro levels of language planning and how this gap affects Tamazight teaching.