Small Cabinet meeting discusses preparations for start of 2025-2026 school year
21/01/2025 20:35, TUNIS/Tunisia

Tunis, 21 January (TAP) - A small Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kamel Madouri was held on Tuesday at the Government Palace in the Kasbah to discuss preparations for the start of the 2025-2026 school year and the restructuring programme of the National Cellulose and Esparto Paper Company (SNCPA).

The meeting decided to maintain the prices of subsidised books and textbooks, according to a statement from the Prime Ministry.

It also decided to determine the need for subsidised textbooks by region and educational institution, in order to facilitate distribution and get the books to the beneficiaries.

This is in addition to the establishment of mechanisms for joint coordination between the public structures involved in order to streamline school aid in the form of ready-made school bags for beneficiaries from poor and low-income families.

The National Company of Cellulose and Esparto Paper will be tasked with producing 5,750 tonnes of paper for textbooks from March 2025 and 5,000 tonnes of paper for subsidised school notebooks from April 2025, and it will receive appropriate financial support within this framework.

With regard to the SNCPA's restructuring programme, the meeting decided to grant the company a government guarantee to obtain a long-term loan to invest in its various production units, increase its production capacity and reduce costs.

The meeting called on the SNCPA and the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries to work towards preserving esparto, protecting it from indiscriminate exploitation and improving collection and marketing methods.

A financial action plan was approved to reduce and schedule the company's debts, while the company was asked to work on the valorisation of its real estate assets, improve its governance and establish proper management requirements to enable it to meet its financial commitments, and order the completion of the procedures to approve the updating of the statute of the company's employees.

At the opening of the meeting, the Prime Minister recalled the President of the Republic's desire to give education the place it deserves and his call to redouble efforts to create the best conditions for a healthy educational climate that guarantees Tunisia's human capital the opportunity to learn, succeed and shine, and to prepare early for the return to school, in particular by providing subsidised books and textbooks.

In this context, he stressed the importance of the public school maintaining its vital part as a social ladder in order to fulfil its role as an incubator of the country's elites and skills on which it relies in the process of construction and development.

He also highlighted the key national role played by the SNCPA in meeting the needs of school supplies, its economic role as the sole producer of esparto paper, its social role in providing direct and indirect employment in Kasserine and neighbouring governorates, and the impact of its activities in maintaining the purchasing power of Tunisian families.

In this context, he called for an improvement in the company's financial balance to enable it to resume its activity, strengthen its position on the market and regain its lustre as a national wealth-generating institution and continue to play its national role in meeting the national needs of the printing and writing paper market, which is estimated at 64,000 tonnes per year.

The Minister of Trade and Export Development made a presentation that included the evaluation of the 2024-2025 school return, the status of the supply of subsidised notebooks and textbooks, the preparations for the start of the next school year, the conditions for the supply of subsidised notebooks and textbooks, and the challenges for the successful start of the next school year.

The Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy also presented the draft restructuring programme of the National Cellulose and Esparto Paper Company to ensure the continuation of its activities, as well as the measures to implement a programme for the development and diversification of production in order to continue to play its national role.

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