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level, the INBMI has put the platform of distance education devel-
oped for the TVS at the disposal of the Workers’ Open School to
use, which helped them give online courses to the benefit of the
students registered at Higher School for Professional Promotion.
This type of cooperation is very significant for the future of remote
education and the applications of ICT in teaching/learning.
Because of the tremendous success this programme has
achieved, we are currently expanding it to cover all the regions of
the country. Furthermore, we are working right now at launching
a new programme with the collaboration of the National Centre
of Trainers’ Training in Carthage, taking into account our prepa-
ration to shift towards a free software environment as far as
distance education is concerned.
Content production
In his Presidential Election Programme, His Excellency President
Ben Ali made it clear that the digitalization of all programmes
relating to compulsory disciplines for 3rd and 4th year Secondary
Education should be achieved in 2009.
Although a special Multi Media Unit has been created within
the National Pedagogic Center to produce a part of the content
mainly for some disciplines such as Computing, Mathematics
and English, it is still worth mentioning that thanks to the compe-
tencies of the educational human resources within the ministry,
we will achieve our goal in the due time. The Private sector in
this domain has also acquired the necessary experience and is
capable of contributing to the TVS content.
Moreover, thanks to some ambitious measures, the encouragement
of personal initiative, the strengthening of training in multi-media,
the progress towards our fixed goals is steady and straightforward.
Widespread of digital culture
The huge transformations resulting from the use of ICT have
impacted all domains, going beyond economy and commerce to
encompass culture and civilization; a digital society has been born,
a reality to cope with and to engage in. In Tunisia, we are more
than concerned with digital culture and this concern is reflected
through the Presidential Election Programme, which stresses the
dissemination of digital culture by encouraging the associations
that promote it. The ministry with all its resources deploys great
efforts to support them through financial help and effective collab-
oration and considers them as efficient partners in the expansion
of this new culture and the conscious and constructive engage-
ment of our youth in it in order to belong to the information and
communication society and to contribute to its construction.
We need to stress the crucial role of mass media in expanding
digital culture along with the extensive training courses, the work-
shops, the organization of and participation in seminars, and the
promotion of high quality digital content targeted at contributing
to the widespread use of this new type of culture to pave the way
towards the building of future society.
Future challenges
To be able to contribute to the construction of the Information
Society and global culture, there are various challenges we have to
take into consideration. The equipment of our educational insti-
tutions, their connection to the internet, the reinforcement of
curriculum development and content design, the search for inno-
vation and professionalism, the full rehabilitation of human
resources are basic tools for our educational system to join the
developed countries.
These challenges are both on the individual, national and inter-
national levels. Lifelong learning, basic training, the preservation
of our cultural identity, the continual improvement of educational
institutions and the empowerment of virtual education are among
the key features that will help us rank high and join the devel-
oped countries.
Obviously, our engagement in the Information Society and
digital culture means at the same time the preservation of our
identity, our cultural heritage and our specific socio-economic
features. This implies more awareness, more cautiousness and
more responsibility in our endeavour.
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Primary school pupils using computers to learn