Students Facing Academic Difficulties and Human Capital Development: A Literature Review and Analysis of the Moroccan Context

Abstract

This article provides a conceptual and analytical reframing of students facing school difficulties within the fields of economics of education, public management and human capital development. Based on a structured narrative literature review, it examines how learning difficulties, grade repetition, weak foundational skills and school dropout affect skill formation, future employability and the overall performance of the education system. The article addresses a gap in the literature on Moroccan education, namely the lack of a synthesis explicitly linking school difficulties, human capital, and employability from an economics of education and public management perspective. The central argument is that school difficulties are not merely an internal pedagogical issue; they also represent a loss of human capital, a risk of mismatch between education and labour market requirements, a mechanism of social inequality reproduction and a constraint on national productivity. The analysis draws on human capital theory, research on learning outcomes, competency-based approaches, employability models and results-oriented educational governance. In the Moroccan context, the article connects national and international learning assessments, recent education policies and labour market tensions in contemporary Morocco. The review highlights two main mechanisms, the early accumulation of learning gaps progressively weakens cognitive and socio behavioural skills, while insufficient remediation turns these difficulties into risks of dropout, underqualification and fragile labour market insertion. It also shows that the effectiveness of remediation policies, including ICT-based interventions, depends less on their formal existence than on their integration into a coherent strategy combining early diagnosis, differentiated support, results-based steering and territorial equity. The article concludes with recommendations for public policy, school management, teacher training and future empirical research.

Classification JEL : I21 ; I24 ; J24 ; O15

Paper type : Theoretical Research