Science and Technology
The national system of scientific and technical research is guided by different elements, such as the pronouncements of the king, reports of special commissions, five-year plans, and the creation of a special programme for the support of research. The Moroccan government's Five-Year Plan for 2000–2004 articulated the priority lines for research. The declared objectives of this plan were to align S&T research with socio-economic development priorities. Sectors declared as priority areas were: agriculture, health fisheries, drinking water, geology, mining, energy, environment, information and telecommunications technologies, and transport. This approach highlighted the need for effective institutional coordination, which enabled different parties to work together around common priority socioeconomic objectives. The private sector is the least active player in research activity in Morocco. The REMINEX Corporation (Research on Mines and Exploitation) is the most prominent research performer in the private sector, and is a subsidiary of Omnium Nord Africain, the largest privately-owned mining group in Morocco. The most recent figures available on the number of research staff in Morocco are those provided by the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education, Professional Training and Scientific Research in its 2002–2003 annual report. According to this report, Morocco had 17 390 research staff in 2002–2003. The majority (58%) were employed in the university sector.
Research institutions include the Scientific Institute, founded in 1920 in Rabat, which does fundamental research in the natural sciences, and the Scientific Institute of Maritime Fishing, founded in 1947, in Casablanca, which studies oceanography, marine biology, and topics related to development of the fishing industry. Nine universities and colleges offer degrees in basic and applied sciences. In 1987–97, science and engineering students accounted for 41% of college and university enrollments.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Morocco
Famous quotes containing the words science and technology, science and, science and/or technology:
“Our civilization is shifting from science and technology to rhetoric and litigation.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“Science is the language of the temporal world; love is that of the spiritual world. Man, indeed, describes more than he explains; while the angelic spirit sees and understands. Science saddens man; love enraptures the angel; science is still seeking, love has found. Man judges of nature in relation to itself; the angelic spirit judges of it in relation to heaven. In short to the spirits everything speaks.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)