The ceremony took place after the Friday prayer at the Lalla Amina Mosque in the Atlantic city of Essaouira.

The prize winners are, in the women’s category, Naima Amine (Beni Mellal), Nabila El Khabchi (M’Diq-Fnideq) and Khadija Id Abdellah (Agadir), and in the men’s category, Mbarek Id El Mehdi (Boujdour), Abdelmalek Al Merdi (Errachidia) and Abdelkarim Kaaouas (Taza).

The National anti-illiteracy program in mosques was launched after King Mohammed ordered in a speech in August 2000 that Mosques remain open to dispense literacy as well as religious, civic and health education courses.

From 2000 to 2019, some 3.3 million people benefited from the program to combat illiteracy in mosques. In the 2018-2019 academic year, 314,854 enrolled in the program that is also followed on the Mohammed VI channel of the Holy Quran, broadcast twice a day, and on the website of the ministry of Islamic Affairs.

Thanks to these programs, mosques have regained their place, not only as worship shrines, but also as venues for spiritual orientation and literacy, and their role in building a democratic, modern, open society, based on the rejection of exclusion and marginalization, and the fight against poverty and ignorance.

The Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, which supervises the literacy program, vows to pursue the implementation of the recommendations of the Higher Council for education, in accordance with the 2015-2030 strategic vision for the reform of the education and training system.

The Ministry also vows to improve the program’s coverage rate in rural areas, increase the number of beneficiaries, promote and diversify means and methods of education and teaching, by investing more in new information and communication technologies.

Under the literacy program, a graduation system will be set up to enable beneficiaries access different national training structures.