by MESSAOUD ROMDHANI
“Young people must take it upon themselves to ensure that they receive the highest education so that they can represent us in the future.” Nelson Mandela
The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (French acronym, FTDES) has published a report on school dropout in Tunisia, a phenomenon that is increasing at an accelerated rate, affecting 107,000 pupils in 2013 after reaching the record of 112,000 pupils in 2012, a number that represented 11% of those who attended middle and secondary schools.
To add insult to injury, the educational content has known a steady decline to the point that Tunisian universities lag behind in African and world ranking. Also, The PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) has ranked Tunisia among the last five in sixty five assessed countries, regarding the level of middle school pupils. (December 2013)
The 2014 UNESCO study confirmed the drop in the standard of education despite the important sum allocated (15% of the State budget, see Professor Karim Ben Kahla 2-2- 2012). That may lead to believe that this money is but a wasteful spending that merely serves to add to the already alarming figures of the unemployed graduates. Or worse, it may indirectly pave the way for delinquency and extremism.
All this is happening in a country that since its independence has focused on educational expansion to help grow “the human capital.” The question is: how come that education has switched from a powerful force of social progress to a big factory producing the long-term unemployed, or even potential candidates for harragas in “boats of death” and Jihadism in Syria and Iraq?
Here we would like to insist on two points of this burning issue.
The Tunisian University: a genuine space of knowledge that has become a factory of unemployment
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(Thanks to Feroz Mehdi)