The concours is the national entrance examination that governs admission to Morocco's public faculties of medicine and pharmacy. Holders of the baccalauréat sit written tests in the secondary-school sciences, and the available places are allocated by ranking. Because the number of seats is limited, many candidates also consider a recognised medical programme in Europe.
From the French concours, competitive examination, derived from Latin concursus, a running together; the Moroccan usage designates the national selection test for the health faculties.
Concours de médecine au Maroc; concours national d'accès aux facultés de médecine et de pharmacie; sélection à l'entrée en médecine
Medical school entrance examination (Morocco)
Admission to the public faculties of medicine and pharmacy in Morocco is competitive. Candidates must first hold the baccalauréat, normally in a scientific stream, and then register for the national entrance examination. The examination tests the core subjects of the final secondary-school years, and candidates are ranked according to their results. Places are distributed across the faculties of medicine and pharmacy according to the capacity set by the supervising ministries. The procedure is organised centrally, which means that the calendar, the registration formalities and the structure of the tests are announced officially each year and should always be checked at the source.
Ranking-based selection means that a large number of well-prepared candidates are not admitted, often by a narrow margin. Some repeat the examination the following year, some move to an adjacent scientific programme, and some look for a medical degree abroad. A European medical programme is one of these options: it leads to a full medical qualification, it is usually organised over a comparable number of years, and credits are counted in ECTS. What matters is to decide early where you intend to practise afterwards, because that choice determines which recognition procedure you will face later.
A Moroccan student who completes a medical degree in Europe does not re-enter the concours on return. The relevant step is instead the recognition of the foreign diploma, which is examined by the competent Moroccan authorities on the basis of the curriculum, the duration of the programme and the clinical training completed. Recognition is what opens access to registration with the Ordre National des Médecins and, for those who wish to specialise, to the résidanat. Preparing the file from the first year of study, by keeping transcripts, syllabuses and internship certificates, makes this step considerably easier.
The other frequent plan is to study in Europe and then practise in France. Here the decisive question is not the Moroccan concours but the legal status of the diploma and of the holder. A diploma issued by a member state of the European Union follows the logic of Directive 2005/36/EC, while a diploma issued outside the Union is treated as a third-country qualification and leads to the authorisation procedure and the knowledge verification tests. Nationality conditions also apply to medical practice in France, so each individual situation should be verified with the competent French authorities before making a decision.
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