Good Practices and Innovations in Public Governance 2003-2011

Good Practices and InnovATIONS in Public Governance
universities and colleges in record time. This exercise had to be completed over July
and August, the warmest months of the year.
Previously, the Ministry had sent a guide for academic counselling to all the candidates
of the baccalaureate exam, around 150,000 per year, providing a comprehensive menu of
training proposed by the State together with capacity available at each higher education
institution. The purpose of the guide was to allow candidates to choose their future study
areas, depending on their motives, their results, and their aspired future careers.
Immediately after the announcement of the final results of the baccalaureate exam
(by the Ministry of Education and Training – MEF), the Ministry of Higher Education,
Scientific Research and Technology received these results in order to make the
necessary calculations and rankings and edit the applications indicating the college
preferences (three choices with three different colors) of those who passed the exam.
The applications were then sent to the twenty four regional directorates of Education
of Tunisia to be handed over to the candidates.
Once the candidates had expressed their choice and returned their applications to the
Department of Students’ Affairs (DGES), the latter began the process of transferring
data from a paper format to a server processing with the support of a hundred of data
entry clerks specially recruited for the task. A specific computer application handled
the choices of candidates and assigned them to the institutions of higher education.
Students who were not satisfied with the university assigned to them had to apply for
the reorientation at DGES and possibly had to return to the Department to obtain
information about their complaints.
The Solution
The online orientation for higher education was finalized for the 2007 session (in that
it encompassed all stages of the academic orientation: online choice forms, data entry
of the graduates’ choices, publication of results for each round, and the publication
of the reorientation decisions, etc.). This online process familiarizes the new high
school graduates and their families with the use of new information technologies and
is much more efficient compared to the old system.
This new online process has allowed the government to provide a better service in
a very cost-effective manner; it has minimized costs related to paper, ink, data
entry payment, transport, overtime, catering, which it incurred in the old system
while the new graduates and their parents have been spared long trips to and long
waits at the Ministry.
It is important to note that mistakes made by candidates in the past, which were a
source of inconvenience for both the administration and the candidates, have now
disappeared thanks to the fact that applications are made online and if any informa-
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