Tunis — Out of the 134,929 candidates who took their Baccalaureate (end of secondary school exams) in Tunisia 57,544 succeeded in the main session, thus representing a success rate of 42, 39%.

The news was announced during a press conference given in Tunis on Saturday by Mr Hatem Ben Salem, the Minister of Education and Vocational Training. The Minister said that the Baccalaureate exam session this year had required the opening of 191 exam centres and involved 12,451 examiners, as well as 66,228 invigilators.

He also said that 29, 67% of candidates in the letters section succeeded, whereas in the Maths section 63, 54% of candidates successfully passed their exams. They represent 58, 72% in the experimental sciences section and 35, 40% in the economy and accounting section.

Insofar as the technical, computer and sports sections are concerned, the success rate is respectively of 51, 44%, 40, 14% and 92, 99%.

The same discrepancy between maths and letters candidates is reflected in the number of candidates who succeeded with honors, with only 7,16% of students in letters succeeding with honors against 59% in maths.

Topping the laureates, is 19 year old, Myriem Askri (maths section) from the Tabarka secondary school, in the Governorate of Jendouba. She succeeded with a staggering score of 19, 53 out of 20, earning her the much coveted mention "Très Bien" (very good), as well as a place of her choice in a leading engineering school, in Tunisia or abroad.

In the 2009 World Economic Forum (WEF) Africa competitiveness Report, as well as in the 2008 Davos WEF global competitiveness Report, Tunisia is ranked 7 th in the world insofar as the quality of its maths and sciences education, is concerned.