Tunisia Confronts Alarming Rise in School Violence

In the face of an alarming proliferation of violence within schools and their surroundings, the Deputy General Secretary of the General Federation of Secondary Education, Mrs. Jouda Dahman, has called for a collective awareness of the urgency to address this phenomenon.

During a phone interview broadcast on Jawhara FM, the trade union leader firmly emphasized that "it is impossible to reform society without reforming the school." She drew a stark conclusion: "The school is today ill and is going through a generalized crisis that threatens its entire components."

Mrs. Dahman highlighted that "the shocking images that have recently circulated on social media are only a reflection of a bitter reality that everyone suffers from on a daily basis, whether it is educators, students, or parents."

She lamented the absence of concrete solutions while denouncing what she called the "prolonged silence of the supervisory authority," adding that this can only exacerbate the situation. The trade unionist also emphasized the limitations of immediate security responses, stating that "a purely repressive approach, such as the deployment of police posts in front of educational institutions, remains ineffective without the implementation of a comprehensive and structural plan to protect the school environment."

To get out of this impasse, the speaker believes that the refounding of the Tunisian education system requires the imperative revaluation of the status of teachers, both in terms of material and social conditions. She recommends the immediate adoption of a national integrated project, in total rupture with the policies of improvisation and short-term patching that have prevailed until now. She adds that "this new model must allow us to approach the education dossier with courage and realism, while giving back to the school its attractive vocation to remobilize students increasingly inclined to disinterest and dropout."

Mrs. Dahman also held the competent authorities directly responsible for a policy of headlong flight, warning that the persistence of this status quo will exact an exorbitant price from the educational institution and society as a whole.