The national consultation on the higher council of education will get underway next September 15, said President of the Republic Kais Saied as he chaired Thursday a ceremony to mark National Knowledge Day in Carthage.
In a speech broadcast live on Wataniya 1 channel, the Head of State said education is a fundamental right as much as water and air.
Yet, it is not enough to enshrine this right in laws. Material conditions that safeguard this right for all in reality need to be made available, hence the creation of the higher education council.
“We are currently waging a war of national liberation and I believe that teachers are engaged in this relentless struggle we are spearheading, ” the President futher said.
The President of the Republic said pupils and students are entrusted to teachers and mark withholding over the recent years cannot be tolerated in the future.
Exam copies belong to education establishments, though.
“The demands of teachers are legitimate,” the President said. Everyone needs to engage in the battle for the country’s liberation.
“The real undepletable wealth in Tunisia is its human resources. We take pride in
Tunisian skilled workers in various fields whom many countries, even the most advanced, seek to attract.”
“It is our duty not to refuse to cooperate with these countries but we need to find ways to keep qualified Tunisians so that the country can tap into their expertise,” the Head of State further said.
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The education sector is faced with several challenges, including infrastructure, school curricula and early school dropout.
The number of illiterate people in the country surged to nearly two millions, Saied said. This is unacceptable and cannot continue in a country which has bet on education since its independence.
The policies adopted so far have paid little attention to the improvement of the education sector. The sole objective since the 70’s has been to create political balances in the Tunisian society. “
Hence, chapters were removed in a number of subjects and reform policies continued but were never innocent.
Experiments on subjects, leaves, the coefficients of the two subjects and class hours followed as if the next generations were an experimental terrain.
The Head of State said one of the most heinous crimes against the Tunisian people was the one against the State education system.
There is no need for official statistics to draw a poverty map as it is enough to look at the success rates in national exams.
The President outlined the disavantages of artificial intelligence (AI) and said it is no suprise that Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the. United Nations,
warned recently against the threats which the AI poses to global security and peace.
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse