The Tunisian president has pledged job solutions for PhD holders staging a sit-in, a symbol of the wider social crisis rocking the country.
President Kais Saied on Thursday visited the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research to meet directly with unemployed PhD graduates who have been protesting for weeks.
The visit, marked by exchanges with demonstrators, underscored the scale of Tunisia’s social crisis, where unemployment disproportionately affects highly qualified graduates.
Listening to their grievances, Saied assured them that integrating PhD holders into the public sector is a “national priority.”
The head of state promised a recruitment process based on competence and merit, with salaries reflecting academic qualifications. “We are making every effort to ensure fair hiring,” he said, while stressing that any recruitment must comply with existing laws and fit within a broader reform of the sector.
While protesters welcomed the visit as recognition of their plight, they reaffirmed their determination to defend their right to employment. For many, the prolonged joblessness of PhD graduates epitomises. Tunisia’s structural bottlenecks: chronic under-funding of universities, lack of research opportunities, and the state’s inability to absorb a highly educated youth that feels marginalised.
Amid an economy strained by debt, inflation and a growing brain drain, the plight of unemployed PhD holders has become a symbol of the social fractures threatening the country’s stability.
MK/ac/lb/as/APA