Highlights

Context / Rationale

Violence and radicalization in schools, especially at the high school level, is a relatively new phenomenon in Tunisia. This challenge needs to be tackled collectively and with more force in order to minimise its impacts and progressively reduce its magnitude.

The workshop intended to begin a process of capacity building of public and private stakeholders in designing innovative programmes and policies, aimed at reducing violence and radicalization in schools, based on international best practices and locally relevant interventions.

The workshop sought to create a platform for discussion among stakeholders to identify and evaluate existing programmes and services related to the reduction of tension in the educational environment, key success factors, sustainability and duplication, as well as implementation challenges.

It was also an opportunity to support the development of a roadmap for stakeholders’ activities.

Objectives

• Sharing best practices in terms of social and economic integration
• Identifying international and local programmes and practices on countering violence and radicalisation in high schools
• Facilitating peer exchanges on success stories, resilience, and programmes implementing challenges
• Exploring collaborations opportunities
• Building a positive and constructive exchange and working environment

Main Takeaways

School violence has dramatically increased over the past years and had a negative impact on system performance including an increase in drop-outs at the secondary school level. Moreover, the deteriorated school environment has facilitated the propagation of radicalized ideologies and movements. This is prompting a coalition of concerned stakeholder to discuss how they could jointly address the issue. 

The workshop allowed to:

• Draft a roadmap of what technical measures could be recommended in three different areas (urban, pre-urban and rural)
• Launch a multi-stakeholder dialogue process to serve as a platform to carry on discussion on education reform to prevent violence and radicalisation.