With the start of the new school year, parents in Tunisia are facing the challenges of high prices that are burdening them to secure their children’s school supplies. Everything has become expensive and it has become difficult to provide all school supplies, and this is due to the requirements of each academic subject.
At all levels of study, six notebooks are required for each subject, and the price of the notebooks is six thousand dinars ($2.5), and the books are the same whether in private or public education. If the father has two children, it will be difficult for him and he will not be able to live in Tunisia.”
Big crisis
Regarding the crisis they are facing, Ashraf, one of the parents, said, “This crisis that the country is going through has affected all sectors. The high cost of living and the decline of the exchange market have negatively affected the Tunisian citizen. The Tunisian’s first goal is to see his children successful, and he wants to have children who excel in study, whether in the private or public sector.
At the same time, Amina, the mother of a young girl starting her new school year in a kindergarten in the Tunisian capital, complains that everything has become expensive and that she and her peers are finding it difficult to provide all the school supplies.
Amina wondered about the father’s situation if he had two or more children in school, whether in private or public education.
Amina’s complaint was repeated by Ashraf, who saw that the crisis that Tunisia is going through has affected all sectors and the Tunisian citizen, but he insists that the goal of every Tunisian is to see his children successful, and he says, “The Tunisian wants to have children who excel in studies, whether in the private or public sector.” “.
Difficult economic situation
Tunisia has been experiencing a difficult economic situation in the past few years, as inflation rates have reached unprecedented levels, and this country has entered into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to obtain a loan worth about two billion dollars.
Tunisian media reported that the head of the kindergarten chamber, Nabiha Kamoun, said that there was a 50% decline in the number of children enrolled in kindergarten for the academic year 2023/2024.
Kammoun believed that this could lead to huge losses in the sector, in addition to depriving large groups of children of the right to acquire knowledge at the pre-school stage.
future plans
For his part, Samir Yen Meriem, Director General of Childhood in Tunisia, stated that the statistics available to the directorate for the year 2022/2023 show that coverage rates reached about 42%, and the institutions were able to embrace more than 260 thousand children, pointing out that the directorate seeks to increase the number. In the coming years, the enrollment of 499,000 children in 2030 will exceed 60%.
The stage of placing children in Tunisia in compulsory pre-school institutions is divided into three stages: infant nurseries, then a period between three to five years, and the preparatory stage before school, which are stages in which children’s education is optional, unlike the basic education stage in which it is… School attendance is compulsory.
