Since its first edition in 2017, the International Citizen Education Forum has declared and maintained that accessible, equitable and universal education is necessary for the construction of a living and dynamic democracy, open to citizen participation (Charter of the Tunisian Forum for Education, 2017, 2019, 2022). Education is, in a way, the engine of the advancement and survival of nations. Some findings are alarming, revealing the persistence of inequalities, marginalization and exclusion, as well as skyrocketing school dropouts and abandonment of the teaching profession. Education is undermined in a world where socio-economic interests dominate and influence decisions without regard to the harmful effects on the actors who are at the heart of education systems, in particular the learner and the teacher. The strong will to build an inclusive society that provides access to quality education is affirmed by many countries that have set themselves sustainable development goals within UNESCO[1].
The International Citizen Education Forum represents an opportunity to reflect and act collectively on fundamental issues affecting the foundations, structures and practices in education. The aim consists in ensuring better social justice, prioritized by education systems that are inclusive, with teaching that promotes the learning of all people, regardless of their age and social group. However, it must be admitted that educational success is thwarted not only by poverty and political instability, but also by the culture and the way in which the learner’s ability to complete his or her schooling is apprehended. Indeed, discriminatory thinking in a society that does not accept difference can encourage people to drop out and have deplorable effects on the future of emerging citizens.
The Citizen Forum gives a voice to all actors, teachers, learners, decision-makers, citizens, in an interdisciplinary approach. It stands out for its significant citizen participation in the discussions, reflections and recommendations resulting from the exchanges. From one edition to another, the organizers have invited people who want a better link between the activities of university researchers and those of actors in the field to take advantage of the possibility of discussing together the issues and challenges of education. Participants from different countries have taken advantage of this event to acquire new knowledge affecting- depending on the relevance to their work environment- effective transformations of their educational practices. Over the years, the Forum has thus become an international event stimulating the
development of collective intelligence in the service of the quality of education.
The previous editions focused respectively on the university pedagogy of teacher training (March 2017, Sfax), the governance and quality of education systems (March 2019, Hammamet) and the learner at the heart of the education system (November 2022, Hammamet ). The large presence of researchers, doctoral students and teachers has prompted continued efforts to improve the quality of education. Following on from the first three editions of the Forum, the fourth edition is particularly interested in one of the key players in education systems, the teacher, who is called upon to support all learners in their learning journeys. Adequate training of teachers, in relation to the exercise of a complex role with major repercussions on the future of society, is essential. With this in mind, it seems judicious and useful to reflect on the challenges of initial and continuing teacher training, professionalizing paths, professional integration and the conditions of exercise of teaching work. This fourth edition also emphasizes governance issues and their impact on educational success and, in the current situation, on the recruitment of qualified personnel to enter the field of education. These two objects of interest are part of the context of the professionalization of the education professions and their evolution over the course ofpolitical, socio-economic andinstitutional changes.
Bringing together researchers, decision-makers and citizens, the fourth edition of the Forum is part of a comparative perspective and will give rise to discussions leading to the emergence of strategies that are at the service of inclusive education and that take into account the dynamic evolution of societies. It will provide an opportunity to establish collaborations between researchers and teachers from different backgrounds.
This Forum is structured along six axes. Each of them will be the subject of a collective reflection which will lead to the formulation of courses of action which it will be recommended to follow up after the Forum.