During its meeting today, Thursday, January 16, 2025, chaired by His Excellency President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, the Cabinet approved a draft decree setting out mechanisms for guiding and awarding grants to higher education students.
This draft law is part of the government's efforts to strengthen the national higher education system, in line with the directives of His Excellency the President and in accordance with the action plan approved by the Council of Ministers on October 1, 2024.
The draft decree aims primarily to guarantee the principle of national sovereignty in the field of higher education, focus on the national interest in guidance and scholarship policy, promote transparency and fairness in these areas, and facilitate the procedures for obtaining them by digitizing those procedures.
His Excellency the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Yacoub Ould Amin, commenting on the draft decree during a press briefing organized by the government spokesperson this evening, said that the new decree removes the age and number of years after the baccalaureate barriers that had prevented many students from obtaining scholarships, and raises the value of academic excellence among the criteria for obtaining a scholarship.
He added that the draft decree sets out four basic criteria for the allocation of scholarships, as follows:
1- Social support, with priority given to scholarships, especially in the first year of a bachelor's degree, based on the student's social record.
2- Support for decentralization in higher education, where special priority is given to students enrolled in higher education institutions in the interior, in support of local development and decentralization.
3- Institutional excellence, where the role played by the institution to which the student belongs in national development will be taken into account. An example of this can be seen this year at the Higher School of Education, which has admitted 372 baccalaureate holders who will form a new generation of middle and high school teachers in line with the republican school system. They will graduate at the same time as the first batch of students enter middle school in 2027.
4- The criterion of excellence: In this context, special priority will be given to those who rank first in the baccalaureate and in various branches of higher education, where a certain number of them (the top ten, for example) will be automatically selected to receive national scholarships, which will encourage perseverance and achievement among pupils and students in order to excel.
The Minister revealed the new procedures for applying for and obtaining the scholarship, explaining that it will be through a platform that will open next Monday, enabling the automatic processing of files according to clear and announced criteria for students, which will ensure transparency, fairness, and equity.
