Over the past weeks, Morocco has witnessed the emergence of Generation Z as a powerful voice. Born roughly between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s, this generation is now shaping events on the streets – leading demonstrations with political and social demands that reflect a new consciousness and an urgent desire for change. This article approaches the phenomenon pedagogically, situating Morocco’s Gen Z within a broader global conversation about education, society, and youth agency.

A generation formed outside the classroom

Unlike earlier cohorts, Generation Z’s outlook has been shaped as much outside school walls as within them. Two events were central to this shift: the COVID-19 pandemic, which abruptly suspended schooling, and the long-standing teachers’ protests two years ago. At the same time, young people were immersed in a digital environment saturated with technology and social media, just as the credibility and quality of schools sharply declined.

For a generation raised on the rhythm of daily schooling—once treated as a sacred civic ritual—sudden exclusion from classrooms created chronically catastrophic consequences. What was once a structured routine of school attendance was replaced by uncertainty, due to the pandemic and deprivation of schools and resources. 

Unintentional deschooling

Educational theorist Ivan Illich coined the term “deschooling” to describe a conscious resistance to the school’s function of reproducing conformity and social, political and economic inequality. Morocco’s Generation Z experienced something similar, though not by design. The deschooling of this generation was unintentional: the product of global crisis and local deadlock produced outcomes that were unpredictable and difficult to contain.

The consequences of deschooling are paradoxical. On one side, the deterioration of education and nearly two years of forced absence normalized disengagement. Earlier generations recall the authority of supervisors and the painful consequences of skipping class. Today’s youth, however, particularly in public schools, have internalized absence as consequence-free. The school has lost its grip as a transmitter of social values or even as a mold of conformity.

As a result, the generation has fractured. Some, freed from institutional conditioning, think and act outside the box, rejecting not only civic participation but also institutional legitimacy itself. Others, particularly those who are subject to poverty and exclusion, channel frustration into destructive behavior, a form of social self-sabotage born of despair. 

Public leisure facilities have become increasingly privatized and inaccessible to these poor individuals. Many feel denied even a mere seat in a stadium that they already cannot afford. These leisure facilities have been once instrumentalized to absorb the feelings of deprivation!

How to open horizon of hope

Yet it would be misleading to reduce this generation to despair. The very capacity to reject conformity can also be a source of creativity. The same energy that could generate protest or even vandalism holds the potential to generate new alternatives and reformist pathways if properly directed. Generation Z, then, is not a fixed identity but an open phenomenon—fraught with risks, yet also rich with possibilities.

From local crisis to global resonance

What Morocco is witnessing is more than an educational breakdown. Gen Z has undergone an unplanned experiment in collective deschooling, one whose transnational dimension became starkly visible during the pandemic. This helps explain why Moroccan youth protests resonate internationally, echoing similar mobilizations by young people in places as diverse as Vietnam and Nepal.

In this light, Generation Z has not merely endured an educational crisis. It has lived through a transformation in society’s relationship with schooling itself—a reversal of traditional pedagogical norms and an invitation to rethink the very future of education in a world marked by rapid and complex change.