Summary:

On 12 August 2024, the administrative body of Secondary Education Union announced plans to protest over restrictions on freedom of union activities as many teachers have been prosecuted for their union-affiliated actions. 

The measures include sit-ins at the headquarters of the regional education delegations, thus defying the Minister of Education’s banning of such sit-ins a day prior. The union also decided to organize protests and strikes without fixing specific dates for these measures. 

The union indicated that the disruption of dialogue with the Ministry of Education has continued with the Ministry engaging in unilateral measures without consent of the teacher’s unions. Union leaders also accused the Ministry of continuing to backtrack on implementing previous agreements reached with the unions. 

Union leaders also called for an end to trading in their pain and exploiting it for electoral and political purposes, in reference to the Minister of Education’s promise to recruit substitute teachers by order of the President Saied. 

On 16 August, and during his speech marking National Sciences Day, the President said that “the state will not accept any threat that may harm the interests of students, regardless of its source” noting that “teachers and professors are aware of the nobility of their mission and are too noble to take students and pupils as hostages to bargain with.” 

Outlook: 

Tensions between the government and teachers’ unions are growing as the start of the new academic year is approaching. The disagreements could lead to an escalation from both sides as it occurred last year when teachers and headmasters refused to submit pupils’ grades prompting the Ministry to dismiss 350 headmasters and block the salaries of seventeen thousand teachers. 

These issues have been occurring for several years, but last year saw an unprecedented escalation as the unions accused the Ministry of refusing negotiation and resorting to arresting union members. 

Sit-ins and strikes have caused disruptions in the academic programs leading many Tunisian families to enroll their children in private schools. 

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