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.

Source : http://www.cia.gov

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 smallest of the nations situated along the Atlas mountain range. The south of the country is composed of the Sahara desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) of coastline. Both played a prominent role in ancient times, first with the famous Phoenician city of Carthage, then as the Roman province of Africa, which was known as the "bread basket" of Rome. Later, Tunisia was occupied by Vandals during the 5th century AD, Byzantines in the 6th century, and Arabs in the 8th century. Under the Ottoman Empire, Tunisia was known as "Regency of Tunis". It passed under French protectorate in 1881. After obtaining independence in 1956 the country took the official name of the "Kingdom of Tunisia" at the end of the reign of Lamine Bey and the Husainid Dynasty. With the proclamation of the Tunisian republic on July 25, 1957, the nationalist leader Habib Bourguiba became its first president.

The country was governed by the authoritarian regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from 1987 to 2011 before he fled during the Tunisian revolution. Tunisia, an export-oriented country in the process of liberalizing and privatizing an economy that has averaged 5% GDP growth since the early 1990s, had suffered corruption benefiting the former president's family.

Tunisia has relations with both the European Union—with whom it has an association agreement—and the Arab world. Tunisia is also a member of the Arab League and the African Union. Tunisia has established close relations with France in particular, through economic cooperation, industrial modernization, and privatisation programs. The government's approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict has also made it an intermediary in Middle Eastern diplomacy. Some 98%of modern Tunisians are Arab-Berber, and are speakers of Tunisian Arabic. However, there is also a small (1% at most) population of Berbers located in the Jabal Dahar mountains in the South East and on the island of Jerba, though many more have Berber ancestry. The Berbers primarily speak Berber languages, often called Shelha. The small European population (1%) consists mostly of French and Italians. There is also a long-established Jewish community in the country, the history of the Jews in Tunisia going back some 2,000 years. In 1948 the Jewish population was an estimated 105,000, but by 2003 only about 1,500 remained.

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.

Since gaining independence from the French in 1956, Tunisian education sector has shown great progress. The government of Tunisia has focused on developing an education system which produces a solid human capital base that could respond to the changing needs of a developing nation. Sustained structural reform efforts since the early 1990s,prudent macroeconomic policies ,and deeper trade integration in the global economy have created an enabling environment for growth .This environment has been conducive to attain positive achievements in the education sector which placed Tunisia ahead of countries with similar income levels, and in a good position to achieve MDGs. According to the HDI 2007, Tunisia is ranked 98 out of 182 countries and is ranked 2nd in MENA region just below Jordan. Education is the number one priority of the government of Tunisia, with more than 20 percent of government’s budget allocated for education in 2005/06. As of 2006 the public education expenditure as a percentage of GDP stood at 7 percent.

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

None.

References

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