Equality of Opportunity in Education and Training - Training under the Centre for Research, Documentation and Information on Women (CREDIF) - Tunisia

Training

Within the framework of South-South cooperation, CREDIF provides international training in the field of "gender, population and development" for Tunisian and African executives involved in government or non-governmental projects for development or for the advancement of women. The training consists of seven modules, including one devoted to the formulation of plans of action. It adopts a participatory approach that uses the experience of each individual and promotes exchange between participants, as well as practical case studies.

Within the framework of policy regarding human resource development, CREDIF has also introduced three types of training:

• Information and training for executive women for more effective career development that is aimed at women executives in the private and public sectors. The objectives of this training are:

- to help the participants improve the effective operation and development of their respective institutions; and

- to design tools that can assist them in promoting activities in accordance with global strategies to give them a sustainable advantage.

• "CREDIF Circles" that take place monthly and which provide scope for participants involved in the training for women executives to debate a chosen topic with an expert in the subject.
• Training sessions, that are similar to the sessions for women executives, but cover the psychology of work and the management of human resources for a mixed public.

National Conference on Employment

A workshop on women was organised within the framework of the National Conference on Employment, which took place in July 1998 in Tunis under the patronage of the Head of State, in order to ensure the human resource development of women and their integration into the economy. The workshop was organised jointly by CREDIF and the National Union of Tunisian Women (UNFT) and was attended by women executives from every sector, non-governmental organisations, as well as a large number of labour experts. In particular, the workshop recommended:

a. The promotion of equal employment opportunities for men and women in the labour market, in particular by:

• strengthening the education of young women and encouraging them to register with employment offices;
• raising awareness amongst decision-makers;
• accelerated implementation of the national plan of action for women's vocational training and encouraging young women to choose new fields of specialisation;
• production of a guide to the jobs of the future; and
• integration of women into recruitment structures.

b. Sectoral diversification and trying to break down occupational segregation by ensuring the presence of women in different sectors of the economy and that they benefit from job creation and other opportunities:

• in agriculture, by, inter alia, encouraging women to become involved in the new specialised areas of agriculture, strengthening training and support for the establishment of micro-projects in agriculture, establishing the inadmissibility of discrimination between men and women in accordance with the amendments made to the Labour Code in 1993 and promoting women's employment in agriculture;
• in the traditional sectors, by revising the conditions for obtaining occupational identity cards and encouraging craftswomen and women designers to start up private training centres and make use of new technologies, and;
• in the modern sectors, by encouraging women to start up service

projects, particularly for family related services, in the fields of tourism, communications and rural transport, as well as in electronics and food processing.

c. The promotion of female entrepreneurship, in particular:

• integration of women's projects into regional development programmes;
• developing service cooperatives;
• cutting administrative procedures;
• improving the procedures for obtaining credit, and;
• producing a guide identifying investment opportunities and the sectors that are positive for investment.

d. Improvement of the institutional framework, in particular:

• the introduction of regulations on women's domestic employment;
• the regulation of the home help sector;
• better protection for women against sexual harassment;
• the promotion of women through the media as agents of development, and;

• the encouragement for the appointment of competent women to head institutions responsible for training and employment.

e. The development of studies establishing the status of women's employment and its future outlook by:

• systematically introducing the gender approach;
• carrying out periodic studies;
• strengthening the CREDIF observatory, and;
• conducting long-term studies on women's employment, the jobs of the future and the consequences of globalization.