ABSTRACT

The article investigates the impact of inherited cultural memes on employability policies in Tunisia, where the 2006 Bologna-inspired reforms were touted as a remedy for the critical problem of graduate unemployment. Mainstreaming vocational tracks, introducing transversal courses and involving employers in the design of curricula and training of students were promised to enhance graduates’ ‘job-readiness’. Yet a decade on, graduate unemployment has only exacerbated and fuelled a revolution that toppled the Ben Ali autocratic regime in 2011. Using the lens of path dependence theory, the article probes the way cultural vestiges may impinge on the outcome of the reform policy. The findings reported are mainly based on a doctoral dissertation conducted by the author and also on other relevant empirical studies. It concludes that ‘policy legacies’ and inherited ‘perceptual filters’ continued to shape stakeholders’ perceptions of the traditional mission of universities, while ‘nested rules’ diluted the impact of the new measures and impeded the institutionalisation of the new path of reforms.

摘要

这篇文章调查了继承的文化模因对突尼斯就业政策的影响，2006 年博洛尼亚启发的改革被吹捧为解决毕业生失业的关键问题。承诺将职业轨道主流化、引入横向课程以及让雇主参与课程设计和学生培训，以提高毕业生的“就业准备”。然而十年过去了，毕业生失业只会加剧和推动一场革命，这场革命在 2011 年推翻了本·阿里的专制政权。本文利用路径依赖理论的视角，探讨了文化遗迹可能如何影响改革政策的结果。报告的研究结果主要基于作者的博士论文以及其他相关的实证研究。