Casablanca, Morocco (TMT)- Moroccan high school students, mostly minors with an age ranging between 13 and 18 years, boycotted schools last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning, and took to the streets, as the featured video recorded in Casablanca illustrates, to voice their anger at the Moroccan government’s recently-adopted decision to keep summer time all year around.
The students say the decision is irrational as students will start now classes at 9 am, instead of 8 am, including having to leave schools late in the evening, one hour later than the previous schedule, mostly after sunset, which leaves them vulnerable to theft and criminals, among other reasons voiced like its non-compatibility with after-school extracurricular activities.
The protests took place in most Moroccan cities and were peaceful, with most protesters calling on the authorities to cancel their decision and to adjust back on GMT all year around.
“Cancel the irrational decision,” the young students were shouting, from which many are still minors as the featured video shows.
Other slogans like “Othmani [the head of Moroccan government] step out, the government does not belong to you,” and “the people want the canceling of the extra hour,” were shouted by the young students as well.
The decision to keep summer time all year around triggered a huge wave of discontent across the kingdom, especially that it was taken coercively, without any kind of consultation with the people, while in Europe an online survey was launched by the European commission, where 80 percent of participants supported abolishing changing the clocks in summer and winter in a survey that ran between last July 4 and August 16.
After the unveiling of the results in Europe, the European Commission president said that “if the people want it, we’ll do it,’ while in Morocco the government went against the will of the people as various polls conducted on local media outlets showed that summer time struck a chord with Moroccans, with an overwhelming majority calling on the authorities to align once for all on GMT, all year around.
The Moroccan Times.
