Moroccan Higher Education at the Time of Covid-19: Issues and

Challenges: A Case Study among Master Students Business

Administration at IGA Casablanca

Hassna Akhasbi

, Naouar Belghini

, Bouchaib Riyami

, Mohamed Benitto

and Nesrine Gouttaya

Institut Supérieur du Génie Appliqué (IGA), Place de la Gare Voyageur, 20300, Casablanca, Morocco

OFPPT, Casablanca, Morocco

Keywords: COVID-19, Higher Education, Distance Learning, Hybrid Learning, Design Thinking, Human Development,

Human Interaction.

Abstract: The year 2020 is marked by a COVID-19 that was propagated and impacted people all over the world. A total

confinement of the population was imposed in many countries. In Morocco since March 16, 2020, a state of

health emergency and confinement has been declared. The Ministry of National Education, Vocational

Training, Higher Education and Scientific Research has taken a series of measures to ensure educational

continuity. It has broadcasted online courses in synchronous/asynchronous modes. The restrictions imposed

by Covid 19 and advances in information technology (IT) raise the question of implementation of new

methods of teaching, mainly distance learning. This article presents the impact of the COVID19 pandemic

and challenges confronted by the Moroccan higher education sector. A survey was conducted among master

students (Business Administration) using an anonymous questionnaire. A thinking workshop on the Mural

software has also been implemented with a group of professors, in order to draw up a list of proposals and

recommendations. Through this research work, it has been concluded that accompanying and support should

be provided to the students so as to remedy the difficulties encountered during this period and to encourage a

use of active methods of learning.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the light of the restrictions imposed by the

pandemic and state of health emergency, the

Moroccan Ministry of National Education,

Vocational Training, Higher Education and Scientific

Research has taken a set of measures. Educational

continuity for the year 2019/2020 was ensured,

adopting a remote mode by broadcasting online

courses in synchronous/asynchronous modes.

According to Devinney and Dowling (2020), this

new dynamism will surely lead to unprecedented

changes in the education system. Claire Marin (2020)

asserts in a recent article published in the newspaper

"Le Monde" that "when faced with a catastrophe, one

is reassured by considering it as a parenthesis rather

than a warning". For Claire Marin, the experience of

the pandemic and its implications

(e.g., fear of the epidemic and confinement), have a

destructive potential at all levels (psychic, moral,

social, economic and political). They deconstruct the

foundations of society and the rules by which they

function. For the historian Françoise Hildesheimer,

pandemics have played a very important role in

societal, political, economic and sociological

developments throughout history.

Covid-19 coupled with considerable advances in

information technology have led to a revolution that

is reinventing most of the foundations already

established (Marin, 2020). Indeed, in educational

institutions, the 'contract' that is defined by the unit of

time, place and subordination is being reinvented.

Currently, new technologies make it possible to

work synchronously and asynchronously in different

contexts. The notion of place is no longer the same. It

has been mutated into new spaces. Hence, human and

professional relationships may be shaped by new

management and leadership styles.

It is only when the crisis ends that the possibility

of hindsight and reasoning about experience and

choices opens up and the degree of impact can be

measured (Hildesheimer, 2020). According to Claire

Marin (2020), during the time of pandemics, a

thousand voices and ideas are possible though they

will not have the same weight and consistency.

Akhasbi, H., Belghini, N., Riyami, B., Benitto, M. and Gouttaya, N.

Moroccan Higher Education at the Time of Covid-19: Issues and Challenges: A Case Study among Master Students Business Administration at IGA Casablanca.

DOI: 10.5220/0010438700730085

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2021) - Volume 2, pages 73-85

ISBN: 978-989-758-502-9

In this context, this article is a contribution to

debate and research about inventing new teaching

methods. It shares observations, recommendations

with regard to distance learning with the emphasis

laid on the following questions:

 Which means to put at the disposal of the

students, in a state of health emergency?

 How to maintain, outside the school wall, the

relations between administrators, teachers and

students?

 How to keep and maintain the synergy of the

group between students in virtual mode?

 How to ensure the professional insertion of the

young laureates in the era of Coronavirus?

To answer these questions, this contribution falls

into four parts. In the first part, we will present the

impact of the COVID19 pandemic on Moroccan

education sector. In the second part, we will explore

the new challenges facing higher education in

Morocco. The third part will be devoted to the

description of the methodology in order to present the

results obtained, their analysis and discussion in the

last part.

2 IMPACT OF COVID 19 ON THE

EDUCATION SECTOR

The COVID-19 pandemic has had several

repercussions on the economic and social sectors.

This has prompted governments around the world to

implement a series of urgent decisions to combat its

spread. They mainly imposed a total confinement,

which impacted social, economic and educational

sectors. UNESCO estimates that more than 1.5 billion

pupils and students in 165 countries are no longer in

school because of COVID-19.

The pandemic has forced the academic

community around the world to explore new methods

of teaching and learning through distance learning.

This has proved difficult for both students and

teachers, who must, not only cope with the emotional

(Béland, 2020), psychological (Wang et al, 2020) and

economic (Aissaoui and Aissaoui, 2020) difficulties

posed by the pandemic, but also do their best to adapt

to these new changes to ensure "pedagogical

continuity".

2.1 Lectures

During this pandemic, universities and colleges have

opted for online lectures in the hope of limiting the

spread of the COVID-19. Students from various

private and public higher education institutions were

obliged to follow their courses at distance. They used

several digital media: PPT presentations, Word or

PDF documents, recorded video and interactive

courses via internet platforms (university website,

Moodle, Zoom, Meet, Google Classroom, Teams,

etc.). In the light of the organizational and personal

constraints resulting from the pandemic that affected

teachers, the courses were not constructed in an

optimal way, or even in a home-made way. In

developing countries (including Morocco), the lack of

network infrastructure in rural areas has prevented

several thousand of students from pursuing programs

online.

2.2 Tutorials and Practical Works

Tutorials are a form of teaching that allows you to

apply the knowledge learned in the classroom or to

introduce new concepts. Students work individually

on application or discovery exercises in the presence

of the teacher, who intervenes to help and correct the

exercises. The tutorials are done in a small group, so

that the teacher can more easily help the students and

adapt his interventions to their difficulties.

Practical work is a type of teaching based on

practical learning with, in particular, the realization of

experiments to verify and complete the knowledge

given in the theoretical courses. Therefore, Practical

Work (TP) is considered an essential part of science

teaching and learning (Pekmez, Johnson & Gott,

2005; Abrahams & Millar, 2008; Abrahams, Reiss &

Sharpe, 2013).

In the context of distance learning, and if

dispensing of lectures and tutorials were possible

thanks to the sharing of digital media, it was more

delicate to simulate the materials virtually to carry out

practical work. In many cases, several hours of

practical work had to be cancelled.

2.3 Continuous Monitoring and

End-of-Training Exams

The objective of the tests is to evaluate the knowledge

acquired during a training period. The context of the

pandemic raises the question of the evaluation

method based on numerical scoring. This issue is of

concern during this period of crisis in the light of the

difficulty that teachers may encounter in evaluating

their students at distance (Béland, 2020). It

necessitates the obligation to rethink alternative

forms to guarantee equal opportunities for all students

and to apply measures to control and reduce fraud,

plagiarism and cheating (Béland, 2020).

CSEDU 2021 - 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

2.4 Internships and Professional

Integration

It is important for every student to obtain a first

professional experience. This contributes to the

acquisition of skills related to the discovery of the

company's context.

Thus, internships are presented as a first

experience and a means of acquiring skills,

complementary to those obtained in training. Also,

they give young graduates access to a professional

network and facilitate integration into the job market

(Vincens, 2001).

In these uncertain times, and especially for

millions of students who have to graduate during the

Covid period, they will be confronted with an

economically almost paralyzed world in certain fields

(especially tourism, transport, etc.).

In Morocco, the results of a study under the theme

"the impact of COVID-19 on the employability of

young people in Morocco" showed that 67% of

recruitments and 64% of internships were postponed

or suspended during the crisis. Only 2% of companies

plan not to suspend the recruitment of young

graduates in 2020 (medias24.com, 2020).

3 HIGHER EDUCATION: NEW

CHALLENGES AND ISSUES

3.1 Some Issues in Education 4.0

The traditional definition of a school/university is a

place where learners acquire knowledge and skills

necessary to not only integrate and evolve in the

labour market but above all to participate in the

development of nations.

The professional world has often evolved in a

rapid and often unpredictable manner. At the same

time, education has always known and followed

important evolutions and revolutions that have

marked it throughout human history. Increasingly,

questions are being asked about the content learned

and the way it is acquired and transmitted: is it

adapted to new socio-economic realities?

Moreover, could the COVID-19 pandemic be a

"godsend" for higher education in Morocco?

Certainly, the Moroccan educational landscape, and

higher education in particular, is undergoing a serious

transformation brought about by the integration of

Information and Communication Technologies

(ICTs) as innovative tools to improve performance

and quality, and to harmonize with international

standards. More or less lagging behind in this area,

has higher education in Morocco been able to catch

up several years of delay, moving from 1.0 to 4.0

education? And have initiatives had anything to do

with it?

In what follows, we consider higher education

under the following headings:

 Education in the age of digital transformation;

 Education in the Age of Industry 4.0;

 Education and Generation Z.

3.1.1 Teaching in the Age of Digital

Transformation

The world that is taking shape in the 4.0 perspective

of digital transformation is reinventing the way

businesses operate virtually in every field. The

education sector has also been affected by this

transformation. Pedagogical innovations have seen

and continue to see the light of day through the use of

diverse digital resources. And, for educational

institutions as for businesses in other sectors, the

digital transformation is taking place at the strategic

and organizational levels as well as at the human and

technological levels.

All companies today have become aware that they

have entered a new civilization in which digital

technology is transforming the way they produce,

exchange, consume and communicate. The most

informed are now looking to better understand and

align themselves with the challenges of this new

civilization characterized by the emergence of new

players, new powers, and new forms of knowledge,

innovative business models and new managerial

skills (Dejoux and Léon 2018).

Digital competencies consist in developing the

competence that includes a multitude of transversal

skills traditionally associated with the following

literacy: media, technological, informational, visual

and social communication skills. Within the

International Society for Technology (ISTE), digital

competencies are equated with digital literacy, which

is based on: creativity and innovation, communication

and collaboration, information retrieval skills, critical

thinking, problem solving and decision making, digital

citizenship, and technological concepts and operations.

Thus, in this context of global civilization,

education (especially higher education) in Morocco is

then directly concerned by the requirements of

international competitiveness which forces the

university to change paradigm. It is crucial to have

training profiles with a high potential capable of

meeting the challenges for a developing country like

Morocco, or even on a continental scale, that of Africa.

Moroccan Higher Education at the Time of Covid-19: Issues and Challenges: A Case Study among Master Students Business

Administration at IGA Casablanca

In order to place education at the heart of the

digital transformation and help young graduates to

become lucid citizens in a changing world, the teacher

must be supported in the integration of new

technologies so as to develop new curricula that

respond effectively to the new requirements of

today's world.

3.1.2 Education in the Age of Industry 4.0

Like mechanization, electrification, automation and

globalization, the "fourth industrial revolution" called

Industry 4.0 promises to have remarkable impact on

the way goods and services are produced and sold.

Industry 4.0, is mainly characterized by intelligent

automation, including connected objects, big data,

data backup on cloud spaces, augmented reality,

virtual reality, etc. all combined with cyber security.

These are fundamental elements for creating

intelligence in an industrial system capable of great

adaptability in the production of goods and services.

Indeed, since its arrival companies are experiencing

real changes that have influenced their value chains.

In the Moroccan context, the crisis of Covid-19

will serve as a catalyst for an in-depth reflection on

the opportunity to make choices regarding the

industrial policies to be implemented. In this

perspective, educational institutions as well as SMEs

have to make important investments to set up R&D

departments and laboratories within their structures.

Thus, the development of an "Industry 4.0" strategy

and a digital plan are essential for universities,

colleges and SMEs that want to make the best

investment decisions for the acquisition and

integration of new technologies (Benomar, 2017).

3.1.3 Teaching and Generation Z

Generation Z, also known as Generation C for

Communication, Collaboration, Connection and

Creativity, represents people born in 1997 and

beyond (wikipedia).

Despite being Digital Natives, specialists talk

about some common characteristics of this

generation:

 It is enterprising: it invests itself and wants to

be enterprising;

 It promotes an experiential and interactive

learning style, involving collaborative work

around projects;

 It is technology-dependent: it is the most

connected generation. About half of

Generation Z reports being connected 10 hours

a day and using an average of five screens

(desktop, laptop, smartphone, TV and tablet).

According to (Philippe, 2017), the point of view

of the Internet Generation clashes with the vision of

teachers, who overwhelmingly adhere to the idea that

education is for everyone a way to increase their

"human capital". This reporting theory helps to

explain students' behaviour, their search for the least

demanding teacher, and the sincere joy they express

when a teacher is absent.

In their choice of studies, Generation Z adults no

longer select their university based on academic

performance, but rather seek the one that can offer

them a unique learning experience.

4 THE COVID-19 ERA:

TOWARDS A STUDENT

EXPERIENCE ADAPTED TO

TEACHING 4.0

4.1 Context of the Study

Under the circumstances of COVID-19, studies at

the Higher Institute of Applied Engineering (IGA) as

well as in other higher education institutions in

Morocco switched from face-to-face mode to remote

mode in a brutal manner. This switchover was in the

form of creative, artisanal, intuitive DIY, which leads

us to characterize it by a simple transposition from the

face-to-face to distance learning. Many educational

institutions, in the best cases, have urgently equipped

themselves with videoconferencing environment or

virtual classrooms without too much planning and

with the use of free systems with degraded

functionalities.

Institute of applied engineering (IGA) already has

a digital space (extranet) dedicated to exchange with

students and their parents. With the switchover to

remote mode, several measures have been adopted to

ensure the continuity of studies in the best conditions:

 The teaching staff has made considerable

efforts to make course documents and the series

of tutorials and practical works available to

students online, 48 hours in advance of the

scheduled sessions;

 For each subject, a Hangout group was created

containing the professor, the students and an

administrator manager (for real-time

monitoring of absences). In addition to

Hangout, several other platforms were used by

the teachers to ensure the smooth running of the

training and remote coaching (meet,

Classroom, zoom...). This allowed teachers to

quickly switch from face-to-face to distance

CSEDU 2021 - 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

learning close to what they were doing in class,

with the possibility of immediate speech, chat

and access to document sharing spaces in real

time;

 Several WhatsApp groups have been created to

keep communication links between

administration and faculty on one hand and

students on the other.

Several other initiatives have been launched by

individual faculty members to help students

overcome the effect of the crisis on their education

(

Louiz, 2020)

4.2 Methodology

In view of the study problematic and the field of

investigation, a methodological approach by indirect

observation was favoured. It is based on what the

researcher notices, "observes" by living with people,

sharing their activities and by using a survey

questionnaire. The survey will initially be conducted

in the form of a feedback questionnaire intended for

a homogeneous group of 24 students of the Master 2

"Business Administration" (AE). They will be

assured that their answers will be confidential and

will not have any impact on their academic results.

The aim is to gather additional arguments to shed

more light on the most promising actions to be

implemented in order to create an appropriate

teaching environment and to reduce the impact of the

COVID-19 pandemic. Also, a Design Thinking

workshop was conducted with a group of teachers.

This workshop allowed drawing up a list of solutions,

proposals and recommendations to be undertaken.

4.2.1 Survey on the Impact of COVID-19 on

Higher Education

A survey was conducted among a sample of IGA

students. The targeted students are enrolled in a

professional Master 2 "Business Administration" for

the academic year 2019-2020.

The main objective of the study is to collect a

certain amount of information in order to know:

 Impact of Covid19 on the student life and the

course of the distance studies;

 To what extent the current distance learning

devices have allowed to maintain a link with

the educational institution;

 Impact of COVID19 on students' professional

life.

For the development of the questionnaire, and in

order to facilitate the analysis of the results, closed

questions with check boxes were used. The general

structure of the questionnaire is as follows:

 General and simple questions;

 Filtered questions;

 Issues with strong involvement;

 An open-ended question giving the student a

free choice of expression.

Given the constraints of time and means, the

administration of an anonymous questionnaire was

online using Google Form via: mailing List and

WhatsApp.

The data were exploited in a spreadsheet

(Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office) allowing the

extraction of simple results (rankings, proportions).

Due to the absence of groups, no statistical analysis

was conducted.

Figure 1 and Figure 2, below, present socio-

demographic information - including gender and

country of origin (Moroccan or foreign), concerning

the sample of students who agreed to answer the

questionnaire - collected:

Figure 1: Percentage of students who agreed to complete

the survey by origin.

- 84.6% of the population studied have Moroccan

nationality versus 15.4% foreign nationality.

Figure 2: Rate of students who agreed to complete the

questionnaire by gender.

In the graph above, we see that 61.5°/° of girls versus

38.5°/° of boys answered the questions, “which

would allow to say that girls in Morocco are more

used to working from home, unlike boys who often

prefer to work outside the home” (Louiz, 2020).

Moroccan Higher Education at the Time of Covid-19: Issues and Challenges: A Case Study among Master Students Business

Administration at IGA Casablanca

4.2.2 Design Thinking Workshop

During one day, two workshops were held with

colleagues and friends working in the professional

sector to develop a list of recommendations. In this

way, the relevance and complementarily of the data

collected in the first stage was beneficial.

The Mural.co tool was adopted and used for this

purpose. It is quick and easy to use visual online

collaboration tool that allows teams to think and

collaborate together to find innovative solutions to the

most complex problems. Users benefit from Mural to

create diagrams, which are popular in design thinking

and agile methodologies.

For this study, the Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ)

model was chosen. It is an animation technique that

can be used in all situations that require a group of

people (between 2 and 8 people per workshop) to

make decisions: to solve problems, discuss challenges

or implement quick actions. Indeed, LDJ exploits

collective intelligence and allows defining concrete

and viable actions, for relevant problems, in record

time.

The Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) method was

used as a working tool, considering the IGA as a case

study (see figure below).

Figure 3: Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ).

It is imagined by AJ & Smart, a Berlin Sprint

Design agency, it takes place in several stages and

allows:

 Identify and prioritize the problems to be

treated;

 Bring out a maximum number of solutions and

define the most relevant ones (with more

impact and minimum effort);

 Draw up an action plan to be implemented in

the short term.

Below are the steps of the workshop process.

The workshop begins with what’s working: In this

step, the different participants use sticky notes to

write down all possible ideas related to the theme.

Here, the participants list the existing elements that

can help to reduce the impact of this abrupt

changeover on the teaching and learning process of

the students. Figure 4, shows the first ideas generated

by the group of teachers participating in the

workshop.

Figure 4: Ideas working.

Then, the participants individually capture all the

problems (Regardless of the degree of their

importance or their priorities). During this phase, a

series of difficulties encountered by teachers during

this rapid transition to distancing were identified.

Figure 5 shows a summary of a set of issues

affected by teachers during this period of continuity

of distance education courses with their votes.

Figure 5: Problems and annoyances with distance learning.

CSEDU 2021 - 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

For 3 minutes participants vote on the most relevant

issues to be prioritized for treatment. The result ranked

from least to highest priority is as follows:

Figure 6: Issues Priorities.

The next phase consists of rewording the

problems in the form of challenges. Four main

challenges are taken up:

Figure 7: Rewording the problems in the form of

challenges.

In the following, analysis and discussion of the

results of the survey are presented and

recommendations from the design-thinking workshop

are proposed.

5 ANALYSIS OF RESULTS,

DISCUSSIONS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

The results are presented in two sections. The first

section deals with the results of the analysis of the

questionnaire while the second one tackles the results

of the Design Thinking workshop.

5.1 Presentation and Analysis of the

Data from the Questionnaire

In this section, the results of the analysis of the

questionnaire will be presented.

In answer to the question “How has Covid-19

impacted your student life?”, more than 70% of the

respondents answered that the pandemic has

impacted their student life in a negative way. The

same observation is confirmed by (Hantem, 2020) in

a study on “The Conditions of Distance Education

during the Confinement of COVID19”.

Figure 8: Impact rate of Covid 19 on students' lives.

Answers to the question "Have you experienced

any difficulties in taking your online courses?"

showed that the majority of students, about 87.5%

(see Figure bellow), found it difficult to take courses

online. This may be mainly due to a lack of

interpersonal skills with the teacher. Several studies

have shown the importance of the teacher's support

and relationship with the school to motivate learners,

even if they are anxious (Elmelid et al., 2015).

Figure 9: Rate of students with difficulties in following

distance learning courses.

It is obvious that the context of the pandemic and

confinement has triggered almost instantaneous

pressure and feelings of isolation and anxiety in many

students, which may negatively impact their

motivation (Liu et al., 2014) and increase the

difficulty of working independently away from direct

teacher support. This difficulty can also be explained

by the difficulty of organizing Supervised Work or

Practical Work sessions as face-to-face sessions due

to the low quality of interaction and follow-up.

Also, this can be explained among other things by

problems related to the connection (sometimes

unstable/noisy).

Moroccan Higher Education at the Time of Covid-19: Issues and Challenges: A Case Study among Master Students Business

Administration at IGA Casablanca

Possible difficulties are confronted when using

ICT outside the classroom like the dissemination and

availability of techno-pedagogical resources for

mediated self-learning (video capsules, documents,

etc.) to students (Enfield, 2013) and the possible

pitfalls related to students who do not have access to

an Internet connection due to an unexpected

connection problem, or to the slowness of

downloading videos and documents. In these cases, it

is possible to provide recordings of the session (it is

possible to do so on Google Meet or Zoom) and make

them available to students online so that they can

access them freely via the Internet for offline viewing.

However, the implementation of these supports

requires technological skills on the part of teachers,

as the literature confirms (Ruiz & al., 2006).

Students' responses to the question "Compared to

the form of classroom instruction, do you find that

distance education requires effort on your part ...?",

show that 38.5% of students say that the transition to

distance education requires more effort on the part of

the student. The same rate represents students who

find that the switch requires little effort on their part.

15.4% felt that the switch did not affect the effort

required and 7.7% said that online courses require

less effort than face-to-face courses (see Figure 10).

Figure 10: Rate of effort required.

In view of these results, the switch, judged

"triumphant" (Villiot-Leclercq, 2020), in a short

period of time from a face-to-face teaching mode to a

synchronous distance teaching mode during the day,

may have developed a cognitive overload of the

students and increased the investment effort and the

assumption of responsibility in autonomy of the work

and tasks to be done by these learners.

With regard to knowledge control, the answer to

the question “What modes of knowledge control

would you consider most appropriate in the current

situation?”, shows that more than half of the

participants (53.8%) felt that the online MCQs were

the most appropriate form for taking assessments

during the Covid era. Individual or group assignment

seems to present another assessment alternative

appreciated by 30.8% of the students surveyed.

Figure 11: Evaluation Methods.

The pandemic context is entirely new and

stressful. In this situation, everyone is looking at the

tools at his disposal and the assessment methods that

seem the simplest, to reduce stress and pressure. We

hypothesize that this explains the high rate of students

who have preferred multiple choice questions or

delayed group or individual assignments to complete

and return their work quickly.

As far as online and real-time oral assessments are

concerned, they should be designed by teachers in

such a way as to discourage students from consulting

their materials, by proposing numerous questions and

limiting the response time. Naturally, students will

find these types of assessments dense and a bit

difficult, but they are appreciated by 21.3% of

respondents, perhaps because they consider them

reliable and fair means. This feeling is found in other

publications (Bolarinwa, 2015).

Respondents' answers to the question “To what

extent did the distance education arrangements put in

place during the period of confinement allow you to

maintain a link with the faculty?” Show that 46.2% of

respondents expressed that they sometimes

encountered difficulties in communicating with

faculty. 38.5% said that there was no change in the

level of communication with their professors and

15.4% felt that the distance learning devices put in

place facilitated communication with their professors

(see figure below).

Figure 12: Exchanges and communication

"Student/Teacher".

These rates show that the scheme has offered a

category of student’s flexibility and ease of exchange

with their teachers. This can be explained by the

CSEDU 2021 - 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

availability of the exchange applications

implemented on their smartphones, tablets and other

mobile devices. In addition, these exchange tools

offer functionalities to manage discussion channels,

chat and collaborative workspaces. Students can

therefore access the discussion group at any time to

ask for help or discuss any difficulties encountered.

The frequency of these contacts should be adapted

to the requirements of the situation (Johnston & al.,

2005). For example, professors must ensure that they

respond as quickly as possible to the students'

requests in order to maintain a feeling of follow-up

and proximity with the student and, especially, to get

out of isolation, a feeling that is strongly felt during

confinement (Zorn, 2020).

Karsenti (2003), argues that devices that offer

students a certain degree of autonomy are more likely

to support them. However, a significant rate (46.2%)

of participants found it difficult to exchange with

their teachers, leading us to wonder about the reasons

for the reduction or even absence of this exchange

flexibility. This could be the result of both a lack of

motivation among these learners to share and/or

exchange with others, induced by the constraints of

the pressure and stress caused by the pandemic and

the confinement, or they found themselves faced with

exchange situations where their teachers were less

available, trying to adapt to these modes of

communication.

In order to understand the appropriateness of

integrating e-learning into the training curriculum in

the normal, non-pandemic case, students were asked:

“In non-pandemic and no pandemic times, do you

prefer one mode of delivery?”

Figure 13: Choosing the Type of Learning Outside of

COVID-19.

53.8% of the participants in the questionnaire

responded favourably for hybrid teaching. This result

shows that this category of students is interested in

this type of learning, perhaps with the aim of seeking

the possible balance between face-to-face and

distance learning.

Such an environment provides pedagogical

resources for learners to use outside the classroom in

order to optimize class time and increase practice

time, as the literature attests (Lebrun, 2015).

The shift towards distance learning was

characterized by urgency and lightning preparation.

This cursory and rapid preparation of distance

learning activities may contribute to a greater fear

among some students of reliving the same distance

learning scenarios in the usual (non-Covid) case. This

may justify the rate of 46.2% who chose 100% face-

to-face outside of the pandemic.

Apart from the inconveniences caused by the

pandemic, the answer to the question: “Will you take

advantage of the confinement period to learn new

knowledge/skills online (outside of school)?” shows

that some students (53.8%) of those interviewed took

advantage of the period of confinement at home to

learn new knowledge and skills including languages

and digital training, given the important place that

digital technology occupies in the daily practices of

these young people qualified as "digital native" (see

figure 14).

Figure 14: Learning done outside the school program.

"Do you think that a learning experience in an

outdoor/open space could be a complementary

alternative to virtual and/or classroom modes of

teaching?"

Figure 15: The opening of the learning space.

In the era of the COVID-19 surely the notion of

place will no longer be the same; it will be mutated to

new agile spaces (open space, forest learning, etc.).

The COVID-19 pandemic, which paved the way

for a very worrying health crisis, has had a

considerable impact on the Moroccan economy

(Aissaoui and Aissaoui, 2020). In this context of

Moroccan Higher Education at the Time of Covid-19: Issues and Challenges: A Case Study among Master Students Business

Administration at IGA Casablanca

crisis of Covid 19 completely unpredictable, students

from around the world were suddenly put in a

situation of professional uncertainty. This explains

the high rate of students “69.2%” who answered

positively to the question: "Do you think that the

health crisis imposed by covid-19 will influence your

professional plan?".

Figure 16: The impact of Covid on professional insertion.

Obviously, the situation varies from one

institution to another and between regions.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Covid19 has had an

influential impact on the course of study despite the

efforts made and the initiatives put in place to help

students benefit from "pedagogical continuity" at a

distance close to that delivered in normal

circumstances. The pandemic has not only affected

the process of knowledge transmission but has given

rise to new challenges. These range from maintaining

the link between student and institution, the

development of new skills adapted to new contexts,

the need to create new forms of partnerships with

companies to ensure and facilitate professional

integration in times of crisis to the creation of start-

ups and digital companies.

5.2 Recommendations

This study highlighted a number of interesting

findings related to the negative effects of the COVID-

19 pandemic and the shift towards distance education

on students' lives. For the majority of the participants

in the survey, the current conditions have strongly

impacted the follow-up of courses, the efforts to be

made to adapt communication with the teaching and

administrative staff, and have strongly favoured the

feeling of uncertainty about their professional future

and their integration into the job market.

Faced with this context, Moroccan higher

education institutions find themselves obliged to act

to remedy and/or mitigate the negative effects of such

a situation on the operation of teaching and learning

by adopting a participatory and mobilizing strategy of

all actors: Teachers, Students and Administrators, to

respond to a massive societal demand and its

challenge: how to continue to share knowledge and

help learners to remain in the dynamics of knowledge

building?

In this section, some proposals for the creation of

a student experience adapted to the context of

COVID-19 coupled with the digital technologies,

based, as mentioned in the previous section, on the

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) method as a working

tool are presented.

From step 6 entitled "Generation and generation

of ideas / solutions", all participants (professors) in

the workshop propose a number of ideas and

solutions. The results of this step are shown in Figure

17.

Figure 17: Generation of ideas and propositions.

Above are the main ideas that were generated

during the LDJ (Lightning Decision Jam) workshop.

The main proposals concern the adoption of a hybrid

mode (online/offline) of teaching and coaching based

on the development and use of new solutions (virtual

classroom, sound slideshows, virtual library, etc…)

to create new user experiences.

Next step is about prioritizing solutions proposed

as illustrated in the figure below:

Figure 18: Prioritize solutions.

This crisis will constitute an opportunity for

reflection about solutions to be implemented in the

short, medium and long term.

To this effect, a number of solutions to be

implemented were listed, considering the degree of

impact and efforts required for their applicability,

CSEDU 2021 - 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

taking into account the student as a central actor in the

process of learning.

The last step concerns deciding what to execute

based on the effort/impact. Solutions are classified on

four categories: what to do now, what to make as a

task, what to make as a project and what to delay later.

The comparison of the results with the literature

and the results generated during the LDJ workshop

allowed to propose the following recommendations.

Figure 19: Decide what to execute.

In order to act more efficiently, it is more

judicious to start by implementing actions that will

allow maintaining this pedagogical continuity at

distance to anticipate new similar periods of crisis,

and to re-think the traditional mode of learning.

 To do Now:

Cloud support: One of the difficulties observed in

this new experience is that the students are

bombarded with digital resources. Consequently, a

strategy for managing and sharing resources in an

efficient way has to be put in place, sharing resources

at the right time so that the learner is not lost in an

avalanche of information or tasks to be done in a

determined amount of time. As highlighted in the

literature, learners need to be provided with open-

access, consistent, engaging and good quality online

resources (Bishop & Verleger, 2013; Enfield, 2013;

Sales, 2013).

Flipped classroom: Indeed, this period,

questioning the practices of pedagogical teams and

students, should lead to further reflections on new

pedagogical devices that will eventually modify the

"classic" organisation of training and teaching

methods (Zorn & al., 2020). If the technological and

digital evolution has allowed the creation of virtual

spaces of exchanges capable of enhancing the

students' learning, it is also judicious to implement a

rigorous integration of those technologies into

teaching processes in order to allow students to

optimize the learning task in an autonomous and

organized manner. In fact, specialists affirm that the

inverted classroom provides a learning context,

focused on more learner-centred pedagogical devices

with active and collaborative learning approaches.

The aim is to seek possible balances between teaching

and learning, between face-to-face and distance work,

between information and knowledge, between

knowledge and skills (Lebrun, 2017).

Special crisis management workshop: This

situation may create pressure as well as an anxiety in

a large number of individuals, which may affect

quality of students' motivation (Liu et al., 2014).

Hence, educative interventions in crisis situations

must be accompanied by coaching or support sessions

in the management of crises. The objective is to allow

both students and teachers to develop competences

that enable them to confront such a crisis situation and

to reduce feelings of isolation and stress.

Furthermore, school and teacher support can help to

motivate the students, despite their anxiety (Elmelid,

et al., 2015).

Some other recommendations with less

significant impact or which require more effort or a

larger budget in order to be implemented have been

suggested:

 Social networking and online competitions

 3D Holography Technology, Fab Lab or

Outdoor learning.

6 CONCLUSIONS

At times of crises, lessons have to be learned and

many opportunities to be exploited. Pandemic

COVID19 presented a forced switch to digital

technologies in all of its forms. More than ever, the

educational institutions are called on to benefit from

these new dynamics and open up pragmatically to the

evolution of training modalities and support for

learners and the distribution of the teachers',

administration's and learners' roles.

Through this research work, it has been concluded

that despite the fact that the majority of students have

expressed a sensitive interest by connecting regularly

to the dedicated platforms and have been involved in

performing the tasks asked to do, it is important to

recognize that some students are unable to adopt and

adapt to this new learning mode. Coaching and

Moroccan Higher Education at the Time of Covid-19: Issues and Challenges: A Case Study among Master Students Business

Administration at IGA Casablanca

support should be provided to the students in order to

remedy the difficulties they have encountered. With

all of the technological solutions that seem realistic

and effective, the face-to-face learning experience

remains an indispensable vector for the transmission

and the sharing of knowledge. The teacher-student

and student-student interaction is an essential

component that must not be neglected, in order to

promote the satisfaction and efficacy of the students'

learning.

In this context, attention must be focused on

pedagogical devices, providing a dynamic

management of learners' groups, favouring more and

more the techniques of communication and

animation, by relying on the good choices of didactic

instruments and pedagogical organization such as:

collaborative learning, resilience development and

crisis management skills workshops, reverse

pedagogy, and many more.

Thus, the continuity of sharing knowledge and

helping learners to stay in the dynamics of building

knowledge should be sustained to keep and develop

the human relations between the various actors and to

face challenges of future competitiveness and

concurrence and to adapt to transformations in

Moroccan society.

Finally, it is to be noted that many studies have

concluded that academic motivation is intimately

linked to learning. In cognitive psychology,

"academic motivation is essentially defined as a

student's commitment, participation and persistence

in a task" (Tardif, 1992). Several other factors, such

as a learner's perceptions and conceptions of himself

and his environment, which encourage him to

commit, participate and persist in a task (Viau, 1994)

(Careau & Fournier, 2002), or social objectives such

as: getting a job, (...), and succeeding in his

professional life (Eccles& Wigfield, 2002). To this

end, a study of the impact of Covid-19 on the

motivation of these learners is important, taking into

account the behaviour of the students and the

environment in which they were placed during this

unprecedented period.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All the authors would like to thank the students who

have participated in this study, as well as all the

teachers who agreed to participate in the LDJ

workshop.

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