Tunisia

Partners situated in Tunisia

None.

Tunisia in a nutshell

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisia)

Tunisia (Arabic: تونس‎ - Tūnis), officially the Tunisian Republic (الجمهورية التونسية‎ - al-Jumhūriyya at-Tūnisiyya), is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. It is also located southwest of the two main islands of Italy - Sicily and Sardinia.

Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just over 10.3 million.

The capital of Tunisia is Tunis.

Tunisia is the northernmost country on the African continent, and the smallest of the nations situated along the Atlas mountain range. Around 40% of the country is composed of the Sahara desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and a 1300 km coastline. Both played a prominent role in ancient times, first with the famous Phoenician city of Carthage, then as the Africa Province which became known as the bread basket of the Roman Empire, and then as the Maghreb region of various medieval Islamic states.

Tunisia ranks high among Arab and African nations in reports released by The World Economic Forum. It has a diverse economy, ranging from agriculture, mining, manufacturing, petroleum products and tourism. In 2007 it had a GDP of $35 billion (official exchange rates), or $76.07 billion (purchasing power parity). It also has one of Africa and the Middle East's highest per-capita GDPs (PPP). The agricultural sector stands for 11.6% of GDP, industry 25.7%, and services 62.8%. The industrial sector is mainly made up of clothing and footwear manufacturing, production of car parts, and electric machinery.

Tunisia is subdivided into 24 governorates.

Tunisia education policy

Education is given a high priority and accounts for 6% of GNP. A basic education for children between the ages of 6 and 16 has been compulsory since 1991. Tunisia ranked 17th in the category of "quality of the [higher] educational system" and 21st in the category of "quality of primary education" in The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-9, released by The World Economic Forum.

While children generally acquire Tunisian Arabic at home, when they enter school at age 6, they are taught to read and write in Standard Arabic. From the age of 8, they are taught French while English is introduced at the age of 12.

Higher education

Universities in Tunisia

The main university-level institutions in Tunisia include:

1. Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie
2. International University of Tunis
3. Université Libre de Tunis
4. Université de l'Aviation et Technologie de Tunisie
5. Institut National d'Agronomie de Tunis
6. Université des Sciences de Tunis

Others include

1. Ez-Zitouna University, Tunis
2. University of Gabès, Gabès
3. Tunis University, Tunis
4. Tunis El Manar University, Tunis
5. Carthage University, Carthage
6. Manouba University, Manouba
7. University of Sousse, Sousse
8. University of Monastir, Monastir
9. University of Gafsa, Gafsa
10. University of Jendouba, Jendouba
11. University of Kairouan, Kairouan
12. University of Sfax, Sfax

There is also the Université Virtuelle de Tunis.

Polytechnics in Tunisia

There are many Higher Institutes of Technological Studies and Higher Institutes of Teacher Training.

Virtual Campuses in HE

Interesting Virtual Campus Initiatives

Université Virtuelle de Tunis

The Université Virtuelle de Tunis (UVT) was established in 2002 as a government initiative and forms the country's tenth public university. The English name (on its web site) is Virtual University of Tunisia. This provides open and distance education using multimedia technologies, and is an attempt to co-ordinate ICT in higher education across the country, provide additional student places (public higher education enrolments alone have risen five-fold over the past 15 years), and widen participation. It offers a growing number of its own awards, but is also working with other Tunisian universities to spread good practice in use of ICT for teaching and learning.

Its web site is http://www.uvt.rnu.tn/

Re.ViCa Case-study

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References

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