Teaching exams age limit to rise to 40, Benabdellah says

Candidates for Morocco’s teaching recruitment exams will be able to apply up to the age of 40, Minister of National Education, Preschool, Vocational Training and Qualification Mohamed Nabil Benabdellah announced on Tuesday before the House of Representatives’ Education, Culture and Communication Committee.

The new ceiling replaces the 35-year limit applied in the most recent recruitment round. Benabdellah made the announcement while presenting his ministry’s draft budget for 2027. Several committee members applauded as he spoke.

The minister said the figure was chosen with career length in mind. Opening the exams to 45-year-olds, he argued, would leave new teachers only 18 years of service before reaching retirement age, which he considered too short. A 40-year cap, by contrast, allows a career of up to 23 years before retirement at 63. He presented this as a balance between wider access to the profession and the needs of a teaching career, and said that reasoning is why the government did not go as far as 45, despite calls to do so.

The age requirement has been contested since 2021, when the government of Aziz Akhannouch, with Chekib Benmoussa then in charge of the sector, set the limit at 30, citing the need to rejuvenate the teaching corps. Unions, rights groups, youth organisations and opposition parties opposed the measure, pointing out that the general civil service statute sets 45 as the maximum age for entering public employment.

The cap was later raised to 35 for the November 2025 exam session, under former minister Muhammad Saad Barada. Benabdellah, appointed by His Majesty King Mohammed VI on Friday, October 16, had pledged in recent weeks to review the conditions for entering the profession. The final terms of the new rules have yet to be officially published.