TUNIS — The Higher Council for Education and Teaching held its inaugural session on Monday, 17 August, at its headquarters near Place Pasteur in Tunis, formally opening an institution that had existed on paper since decree No. 204 of 2026 but had no members until last week. President Kaïs Saïed visited the building the same day, was briefed on the council's preparatory work, and described the body as central to improving the performance of schooling, higher education, scientific research and vocational training.
The council's composition was completed by a presidential decree dated 12 August and published in the Official Journal. It named the members of its governing board and appointed Mohamed Ali Boughdiri — education minister until 2024 — as secretary general. The other named members are Tijani Gmati, Youssef Ben Othman, Chiraz Stambouli, Rim Laribi, Kamel Henid, Mohamed Habib Allani and Mohamed Seifallah Ben Abderrazak. Five days separated their appointment from the session that launched the council's work.
Under the texts governing it, the council is to examine major questions relating to education, teaching, scientific research and vocational training, and to formulate orientations and recommendations for those sectors. The timing is deliberate: the school year opens in the second half of September, and the government approved 67 million dinars in additional back-to-school support at a ministerial council earlier this month.
What the council can and cannot do
The council's mandate, as published, is to advise. It formulates orientations and recommendations; it does not legislate, does not hold budget authority, and does not direct the education ministry. Its members are named by presidential decree rather than elected by or drawn from the sectors they are meant to represent, and the founding texts made public so far do not set out how teachers' unions, university bodies, parents' associations or students are represented within it, nor whether its opinions must be published.
That matters because Tunisia has had national education-reform structures before. A national consultation on education ran in 2015 and 2016 and produced a white paper; its recommendations were not enacted into a reform law. The reform of the education system has appeared in successive government programmes since. The obstacle in each case was not a shortage of diagnosis but the absence of a body with the standing and the continuity to convert diagnosis into legislation and to survive changes of minister.
An advisory council with presidentially appointed members can supply continuity. Whether it supplies standing depends on whether the profession accepts it as legitimate — and the largest teachers' unions, which have repeatedly struck over pay and conditions, were not visibly part of the appointment process.
What would make it work
Comparable bodies elsewhere offer a template that costs little. France's Conseil supérieur des programmes and Morocco's Conseil supérieur de l'éducation, de la formation et de la recherche scientifique both publish their opinions and annual reports in full, which allows the public to see what was advised and what the government did with it. Both include statutory representation for teaching staff, and Morocco's council issues a periodic national assessment of the school system that has become the reference document for debate there.
Three steps would let Tunisia's council be judged on results rather than on how it was appointed: publish the full founding texts and the council's opinions as they are issued; give teachers' unions, university bodies and parents' associations a defined seat; and commit to a first public assessment of the school system with a date attached. None requires new spending. The first session has been held. What the council produces before the school year opens next month will indicate whether it is a working institution or another announcement.