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Learning was his way out of poverty and marginalization : Meet Mahjoub Bayassine the founder of the Digital France School. The institution trains young people from poorer backgrounds in coding, programming and new technologies, in order to help them find a job, while also restoring their dignity.
Bayassine was not always a tech geek: as a child, he experienced the traditional way of life of Sahrawi nomadic populations, moving in search of water. Born to parents from the Aït Yassine tribe, in the region of Guelmim-Oued Noun, he remembers his early years with his family, who eventually settled down in Agadir, as a happy time.
School as a safety net
Originally a camel driver, his father would later convert into a butcher. He opened a shop which quickly gathered a lot of loyal customers and built up a local brand. As business was growing steady, the household’s financial situation was improving and the father would then buy an apartment. Yet the small business owner would quickly fall to cancer, leaving Mahjoub, his mother and siblings destitute overnight.
Faced with a dire financial situation, the grieving family leaves the apartment to move into their late father’s shop. «We lived in this small shop, which was very difficult, especially since we had no privacy», Mahjoub Bayassine recalled.
But in the face of life's hardships, the mother retained her pride and dignity, transmitting these values to her children and doing everything she could to convince them to commit to their studies.
«School was a safety net to me, and it all comes down to my mother, to whom I pay tribute; she fought for a better future for her children. She had never been to school, but she made sure every day that we had learned something new, when coming home from class».
However, Mahjoub Bayassine struggled to follow his lessons, due to the shock surrounding the death of a dearly loved father. His mother’s hopes would ultimately help him become a bright student, who managed to get a state merit scholarship after graduating with honors. Hence Mahjoub Bayassine would fly to pursue higher education in France.
Even thousands of kilometers away from his native region and with little means to meet his daily needs, Mahjoub Bayassine has not forgotten his mother's role in the possibilities offered to him for training. «I would receive 500 dirhams, I would send 100 to my family and I would make do with what I had left», he recalled with amusement.
Innovative teaching to pull young people out of marginalization
With a bachelor's degree in physics in hand, Mahjoub Bayassine decided to quickly get into the job market and created an IT company in Paris. He decided also to provide evening classes in Seine-Saint-Denis «by choice», convinced that «it was over there, in so-called ‘difficult areas’, that we would really do something worthwhile as a teacher».
Hence Mahjoub Bayassine would hold vocational training classes. Faced with students interested in technical training, he had to find innovative pedagogical approaches in order to arouse their interest in mathematics or physics courses. «I also understood their feeling of injustice, being sent to a vocational high school, just because they were not born to wealthier families, whereas some of them could be good students in formal education», said Mahjoub, who has succeeded in applying a more participatory approach to learning.
«One day I had a visit from the headmaster who was amazed at the way I was teaching», he recalled, indicating that the school director would be critical of unorthodox teaching methods. However, his methods brought results and Mahjoub's students were making progress.
Looking for a new challenge, the teacher stepped back into entrepreneurship, working through his new company with Générale des Eaux. In the 1990s, he also proposed a development project for the 3515 for Morocco.
Mahjoub Bayassine has also developed the first website of the government of Morocco, in the 2000’s, which belonged to the Ministry of Communication. The website had a whole section dedicated to Moroccans living abroad, with a directory listing their skills and countries of residence. The IT expert was also behind the National Office of Tourism of Morocco’s first website, hence setting up Morocco’s first digital tourism initiative.
Digital France School, coming back to life through a project
In 2017, Mahjoub Bayassine is faced with a new hardship. After a near-fatal stroke, he was admitted to the emergency services of a cardiology center. During this decisive moment, he would cling on to life, to the astonishment of his doctors who would have congratulated him for «holding on to life».
During the long convalescence following a heart surgery, Mahjoub Bayassine remembered that «the best years of [his] life» were those when he transmitted knowledge to young people and taught to students with learning difficulties.
Thus, on his medical bed, he launched Digital France School, an innovative educational project to «support the technical skills needs of new IT companies». However, few professional integration bodies believed in it. «Pôle Emploi [governmental employment agency, ed] told me that they did not believe in this training project», he told Yabiladi.
Against all odds, Majhoub Bayassine decided to use his own funds to set up the free training initiative which was later recognized by the French state as a «professional higher education 2-year training», although the school would not specifically be intended for baccalaureate holders. His latest achievement occurred during the month of October, when he won the Trophy for societal commitment for inclusion in employment .
«One of the things that made me the proudest was the fact that we managed to train a young person under the age of 18 successfully last year. He had left our school for a while, refused all the recruitment offers that he received after this training and he decided to enroll in a master's degree at the university, thus returning into conventional education».
Due to the immense success of Digital France School Mahjoub Bayassine is currently planning to set up a new training 3-year post-baccalaureate scheme, in the city of Guelmim. The project is supported by both the Ali Bouaida Foundation and the City of Cergy.
Mahjoub Bayassine explains this success by the fact that his training is based on «active pedagogy with work on business projects». Once enrolled, students get placed immediately into the professional world, training themselves to work on real services, in partnership with new technologies companies.
In addition to acquiring, practical and concrete skills, the students also learn to regain self-confidence. Mahjoub Bayassine aims to reproduce the same model in Morocco, where he dreams to make employment and training a way to «give dignity and a life course for our young people».
Thus is born the «Digital Sahara School» in Guelmim, but eventually «also in Dakhla, Laayoune and Ouarzazate». Later, Mahjoub Bayassine expects to also extend to Al Hoceima, where local voices asked him to open another Digital School.
