An Approach with Five Interconnected Innovations. This presentation will focus on a
program in Morocco that supports the current governmental Moroccan agenda of educational reform. This program, Advancing Learning and Employability for a Better Future (ALEF), is funded by USAID, and implemented by AED. ALEF works at the secondary educational level with a focus on middle schools and professional training centers and colleges in order to increase the employability of the Moroccan youth, both rural and urban, young men and young women. The presentation will highlight five cross cutting innovations that make this program a flagship in creativity and new thinking.

These innovations are around the issues of:

1- Allowing graduates at all levels to be channeled directly into the economy;

2- Improving the relationship and dialogue between the quality and the relevance of education;

3- Equipping youth with a skill set responsive to the needs of the modern economy;

4- Promoting gender equity as a crucial backbone to the relationship of education and employability;

5- Increasing women's knowledge about their rights as an asset to such reform programs.