 With the highest level of primary school enrollment in the Middle East and North Africa, and one of the highest rates of public education spending in the region, Tunisia is well on its way to improving educational achievement. However, one enduring challenge is the uneven quality of basic education. This results in a high number of students who drop out or repeat in later grades.
In 1998, to address these challenges while building on UNICEF’s “learning improvement” project, the World Bank launched a six-year education project in partnership with the Tunisian government. Its aim is to improve the quality of basic education through innovation in teaching and technology.
The project’s new approach to teaching and learning is to build a stronger educational base in Tunisia while introducing new tools that are empowering both teachers and students. Preliminary results are encouraging. In 1998, the pass rate for sixth grade students stood at 68 percent, while the repetition rate was 25 percent. In 2002, the pass rate had jumped to 87 percent, while the repetition rate had fallen to 8 percent.
The quality of the learning process has clearly improved, with teachers now playing a new role: rather than delivering a lesson with little specialized attention to individual student needs, teachers are focusing more on students’ strengths and weaknesses, thereby letting fewer students slip through the cracks. For example, in 43 of 100 targeted schools in El Kef and Kasserine, teachers are being taught new methods centered on participatory and active learning. They are more accountable for an individual student’s progress. Moreover, classrooms that were traditionally centered on chalkboards are now equipped with computers and multimedia educational software. Students now have more leeway to explore with new technology and work at their own tailored pace.
Updated: November 2003
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