Progress for higher education, but less so for women

Tawfik Jelassi, Tunisia’s minister with responsibility for higher education and scientific research, gave an assessment of the sector for the previous 100 days, setting out progress and priorities including university elections, high graduate unemployment, and planned new institutions and research departments. Meanwhile, a report has found that women are under-represented in Tunisia’s highest university posts.

After explaining that university elections for advisory committees and deans were on course, Jelassi said his other priority was completion of the university year in the most favourable conditions, and preparation for the 2014-15 year, reported La Presse of Tunis.

In the new year, recruitments would include 602 lecturers and 40 tenured professors; and professional promotions for 819 lecturers, 713 senior lecturers and 182 professors, said Jelassi.

A new national engineering school would open at Gafsa, and a school of advanced science and technology as well as an ICT institute would be opened at Borj Cédria. Also, 14 new research laboratories and 31 research units in university institutions would be created.

Graduate unemployment

On the problem of graduate unemployment, Jelassi said that more than 70,000 students left university each year while there were posts for only 35,000 to 40,000.

He said it was necessary to encourage free enterprise, and for students to learn to cope by themselves and rely on their own capabilities, reported La Presse. It was important to cultivate the idea of entrepreneurship in courses through a system consisting of both training and internships.

There were 215,000 unemployed graduates, a third of the total number; and about 400 doctors of biology and 11,000 ICT graduates were out of work. Many of them could find jobs in the field of international development if their language skills were better, said the minister.

On new technologies Jelassi announced an ICT event, ICT4ALL, to take place in Hammamet in September, under the slogan ‘Towards a new digital opportunity’.

He also mentioned the SMART Tunisie project, approved by the government at the end of last year, which aims to attract multinational companies and create up to 50,000 ICT jobs over five years.

Women in HE posts

An aspect of higher education the minister did not broach was the presence of women in senior university posts.

DirectInfo reported on a study by the SHEMERA project which found few women in the higher echelons of Tunisian universities.

It found that 56% of Tunisian women working in research and science had PhDs, and the rate of women higher education graduates was 60% in 2010.

But of 193 university-level institutions, only 21 were headed by women; and of the 41 of these institutions that delivered doctoral degrees, just one was led by a woman.

Neila Chaabane, Tunisian secretary of state for women and families, said the report showed disparity between women and men in the job market in spite of an increase in girls’ education. She noted that in universities women were more likely to be in ‘assistant’ lecturer and professor roles, and less often to be senior lecturers and professors.

She said plans were under way to revise legislation on maternity leave, and to introduce paternity leave, which would allow parents to share responsibilities and women to continue their professional careers.

Funded by the European Union, SHEMERA was launched in 2011 to improve research cooperation on gender and science between the EU and Mediterranean countries.

* This article is drawn from local media. University World News cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original reports.