A total of 1,995,167 students (around96.2 percent of total enrollment) attend public schools inTunisia. The public school student population isconcentrated almost evenly between the primary (50.6percent) and secondary levels (49.4 percent), and 82.6percent of the total number of students attend schools inurban areas. Around 3.9 percent of enrolled students attendprivate schools (all of which are private, government-independent schools). All private schools are located inurban areas, principally serving secondary school students.Tunisia does have in place a mandatory probationary periodprior to awarding open-ended status to new teachers. Thismay help in facilitating the dismissal of weak andunmotivated teachers earlier on, before they becomepermanent staff and part of the civil service. The firstyears of teaching are among the best available predictors ofa teacher's performance later on. Therefore, it ispositive to have in place screening processes to dismisslow-performing teacher entrants. In Tunisia, this screeningprocess to gain open-ended status involves being assessed onperformance. Once a teacher holds an open-ended appointment,the results of the performance evaluation process may beused in dismissing a teacher based on his/her performance.However, given the fact that data on the extent of teacherunder-performance and rates of dismissal are unavailable, itis not possible to ascertain the extent to which ineffectiveteachers are removed in practice.
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