In twenty years, the share of the Mathematics track in the baccalaureate has fallen from 18% to 6%. Behind this figure lies a liability that neither the finance law nor the rating agencies measure: the scientific debt, whose interest is paid in competitiveness.
A public debt is read in a balance sheet. A scientific debt is read in a classroom, with ten or fifteen years of delay. When a country struggles to recruit mathematics teachers, the reflex is to talk about vacancies, entrance exams, and human resources management. The reflex is legitimate, but it confuses the symptom with the cause.
The cause lies farther upstream: in a nation’s ability to producе, generation after generation, minds capable of reasoning, modeling and solving complex problems. This capacity functions like an infrastructure, with one difference: it is intangible. A cracked bridge alerts the residents. A field that is drying up alerts no one, until the day when the economy demands talents that the system no longer produces.
This is the thesis developed by IACE in its strategic note published yesterday, Thursday 1 October under the title “The Scientific Succession: A Strategic Link in National Competitiveness” and backed by its study “Mathematics at the Heart of Tunisia’s Development.”
The think tank shows that the difficulty in renewing teachers is only the visible tip of a continuous chain, which starts from fundamental learning, traverses the university and fuels research, innovation and high-technology sectors.
An ever-narrowing funnel starting in high school
