Physical Education Teachers in Tunisia Conception of Training Actors as a Source of Vulnerability

Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881, which ended in 1956. This led Tunisia to ensure the education of the young Tunisians and, as a consequence, to ensure efficient training of future teachers. Until nowadays, this project did not lead to satisfying outputs, especially in the case of PE. The present study thus aimed to examine the possible vulnerability of the training of PE teachers in ISSEPs. This was done by using semi-directed interviews to take into consideration the point of view of major players in the training (i.e.: the directors of the ISSEPs, trainers, and students) regarding teacher training in the ISSEPs.

The results of a lexical analysis (Alceste2012plus©) completed by a categorical analysis showed that these interviewees are aware of the weaknesses of the training of PE teachers in ISSEPs. However, each type of interviewee considered that these difficulties are not linked to themselves but rather to another type of interviewee or to causes originating from outside of the training itself. Such potentially conflicting points of view were also found to be formulated on the base of a consensus regarding PE as the interviewees implicitly consider PE as a sports initiation (or as a sports training). However, this consensus, probably anchored in the mentalities since the independence of Tunisia, is not consistent with the target set by the Education Act of 2008.

As a consequence, this suggests a particular interest to make the training evolve as a function of the requirements of PE teaching, which might require promoting an innovative form of training.