Speech by President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on Knowledge Day
Carthage, July 13, 2007
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to meet with you again on this special occasion which we are keen on celebrating regularly, in order to pay tribute to knowledge and those devoted to it, and to honor the members of the education, training, higher education and scientific research community, in recognition of their generous efforts in providing education to our generations and serving our country.
While conveying my sincere greetings and encouragements to all our pupils and students, I would like to congratulate all those among them who have been successful and achieved outstanding results, and all those who, in a moment, will receive medals and prizes.
I also would like to welcome the Arab Ministers of Education who are sharing with us our celebration of « Knowledge Day », which coincides with the holding of their extraordinary general conference in Tunis. This, in fact, reflects the determination of Arab countries to modernize and promote our societies.
The attention granted to the sector of education, the investments engaged in this field, and the stakes placed on this sector, constitute a guarantee for our Arab Nation, allowing it to assimilate, with confidence and capability, all world novelties in terms of knowledge, sciences, technologies, inventions and creations. This will enable our Nation to benefit from and enrich these innovations, and to assert, with competence and eligibility, its active presence on the international scene, its effective contribution to anchoring the culture of moderation and tolerance among all individuals, communities and peoples, and its diligent endeavor to establish channels of communication and dialogue with all civilizations, cultures and religions.
I avail myself of this occasion to thank the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) for awarding me the Grand Golden Shield for Educational Distinction. I also wish to express my sincere gratitude and consideration to Mr. Khaled Touqan, President of the Arab Education Ministers General Conference, for his kind words towards Tunisia, its people and its leadership.
I also wish to convey my sincere thanks to the Federation of the Universities of the Islamic World (FUIW), for awarding me its Golden Shield, and my deep consideration to Dr. Abdulaziz Altwaijri, Secretary-General of the Federation and Director General of Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), for his kind address where he expressed noble sentiments and paid tribute to Tunisia's gains and achievements in the field of higher education.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In Tunisia, we consider our human resources as our principal wealth and our optimum path to achieve our national objectives in terms of progress, development and invulnerability. We have, therefore, established democracy, equality and human rights as values that are most equitably distributed and practiced by all Tunisian men and women. We have also placed the sector of education, training, higher education and scientific research in the forefront of our national priorities. We have promoted and reformed this sector, and devoted to it one-third of the State budget. We have established, in all parts of the country, a network of schools, centers, institutes and faculties, which currently offer education to nearly three million pupils and students from all social categories and generations. We have thus guaranteed the right of all to life-long learning.
Our country is indeed entitled to take pride in the success it has achieved in improving education indicators at the quantitative and qualitative levels, in reducing the rates of failure and dropping out of school, in improving the rates of success and promotion from one education cycle to another, and in anchoring the culture of excellence from one year to another. The rate of success with distinction in the national secondary school graduation exam, which did not exceed 5% ten years ago, is now 26%.
As part of our program aimed at offering pupils optimum conditions of success, we have called for the restructuring of secondary education, by diversifying its branches of study and developing its contents, so that it can meet the aspirations and personal qualifications of our young generations, keep up with the new academic specialties, and contribute to increasing employment opportunities. During the next school year, the first classes of the new secondary education will reach the end of this cycle, and will take the Baccalaureate exam in its new formula. We hope this reform will achieve the set objectives, by confirming the improvement of performance, generalizing the notion of quality, and ensuring our sons' and daughters' perseverance in excellence and distinction.
Keen on preserving the interests of pupils who had joined the secondary cycle before introducing the new restructuring, we give instructions so that the necessary measures be taken to enable those pupils to pursue their studies in a normal way in accordance with the old system, and to allow them to sit for the national secondary school graduation exam in its current formula without any changes.
We remain deeply aware of the major challenges characterizing the coming stage, particularly as regards establishing the information society school, and achieving successful integration within the knowledge- and intelligence-based economy.
In line with this orientation, we announce our decision to reinforce our special program designed to open up for all pupils opportunities for access to modern knowledge and computer and communication technologies, by allowing them to obtain a “diploma in computer science and Internet” which the school will be committed to granting in the basic and secondary education cycles, through an adapted additional training that guarantees the pupil's effective capacity to use the computer in all fields as well as to surf and do research on the Internet.
During the current school year, we have taken a number of measures aimed at improving quality, through the assessment we have made of the acquisitions of fourth year basic education pupils, and the establishment of pilot preparatory schools and technical preparatory schools that take in pupils having practical skills and guarantee job opportunities for them upon graduation.
We have also established a vocational national secondary school graduation exam in order to open up larger prospects for learners and facilitate their access to higher education or their integration within professional life. These initiatives aim at guaranteeing the right to acquire the best knowledge and professional qualifications.
Determined to make sure the vocational training sector provides optimum preparation for undertaking the occupations of the future and the new modes of work and production, we gave instructions, on January 10, 2006, for organizing a national consultation in this field, with the participation of professional, social and political partners as well as Tunisian specialized experts. While appreciating the deep sense of awareness and commitment that has characterized this consultation as regards the challenges of the coming stage, we reaffirm our determination to materialize its orientations and to provide propitious conditions to achieve the comprehensive quantum leap we have set as an objective in this sector.
Keen on guaranteeing continuously the right to lifelong learning for all, we give instructions to merge the open school for workers, the virtual school, and all the remote learning mechanisms within one system to which the necessary legal, human and material foundations will be provided, so that it can accomplish its role as a public institution for education and training, working in complementarity and interaction with other educational institutions and vocational training structures.
As regards the national adult education program, we express our satisfaction with the success it has achieved, since its establishment in 2000, in providing literacy to over 370,000 learners from both sexes, i.e. with an annual average of 53,000 beneficiaries, among whom 80% are women.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In our country, the higher education system currently encompasses 342,000 students, 59% of whom are girls. This number is expected to reach half a million in 2009. In addition to the deep and successive reforms we have introduced in this sector, we are determined to make further strides ahead, through revising the law organizing this sector and providing all conditions that can help our universities reach the highest levels of development and quality.
The new system of university diplomas at the level of “Licence”, “Master” and “Doctorate”, which conforms to international standards, constitutes a commendable progress in the process of higher education reform. It is indeed a source of satisfaction to us that more than two-thirds of higher education and scientific research institutions will join this system in the coming academic year.
We have closely followed the progress achieved in the indicators related to the higher education computer system, especially as regards the generalization of remote university admission and registration for all students. As part of the objectives set in our Program for Tomorrow's Tunisia, we will work for establishing intranet for higher education, as well as for promoting the university communication infrastructure, in accordance with the standards applicable for the second generation of Internet. In this context, we give instructions for accelerating the establishment of the virtual academic library.
On the other hand, the number of higher education branches of study has been increased from 599 during the 2005-2006 academic year to 785 this year, including promising professional specialties. The number of students admitted in fields of study related to computer science, communications, arts and crafts, languages, applied humanities, sciences and engineering, amounts to nearly 190,000.
The rate of graduates in the fields of sciences, engineering and technology amounts to 9.8‰, which brings us closer to the objective we have set for 2009, namely achieving 11‰ for the 20-30 age bracket.
Universities are called on to step up efforts in order to change the prevailing mindsets concerning the creation of economic businesses and the launch of projects, and to keep up with the new world realities, through instilling the sense of initiative and creativity in the minds of students, and exploring further mechanisms to prepare graduates who are capable of undertaking free initiative and providing jobs.
The correlation between teaching and scientific research remains a fundamental factor for promoting training methodologies in higher education, and for enriching the national scientific output. While appreciating what has so far been achieved in this field, we give instructions to establish a national plan for optimally upgrading higher education human resources and for further improving the rates of training, research and supervision.
In this regard, we exhort private promoters and investors in this sector to show further diligence and audacity in diversifying specialties, skills, and scientific and technological branches in their enterprises; the aim being to reinforce our universities' contribution to consolidating our capacity to face world competition and serve our development projects.
In the field of scientific research, we have managed to establish a fruitful partnership with sisterly and friendly countries and with the countries of the European Union. On this occasion, we express our appreciation of the achievements made in terms of applied research, particularly in the fields of water, energy, communication technology, and bio-technology.
To optimize the mobilization of our human and material resources in this field, we call for integrating research laboratories within internal and international networks for the implementation of the projects planned as part of national priorities, as well as for establishing a plan to combine the efforts of research units and turn them into laboratories.
Our students being our national wealth, with whom we build the future of our country, we have endeavored to offer them optimum conditions for study, residence and leisure. In this context, we give instructions for the establishment of ten centers for cultural, sports and leisure activity within university cities in the interior of the country.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are proud of the gains and results accomplished by our educational system, as well as of our country's skilled and competent human resources in all fields. We are determined to pursue our generous efforts in order to offer our pupils and students optimum conditions for success and distinction.
I am convinced that our educators, teachers, researchers and all workers in the institutions of education, training, higher education and scientific research in our country, are aware of the noble mission with which they are entrusted, for developing our human resources and optimizing the preparation of our young generations, in order to consolidate the capacity of our people to reach the highest level of progress and prosperity.
Many happy returns to the education family !
Thank you for your attention.
Tunisia
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