Determinants of the Quality of Primary Education in Tunisia: A Micro-Econometric Analysis Applied to the TIMSS 2011 Study

Empirical estimates of education production are very few in the case of Tunisia due to non availability of data. Fortunately, trends in international mathematics and science study starts to fill this gap by providing data on students’ achievement. TIMSS 2011 revealed that the average performance of Tunisia student is at the lower end of the distribution of the average score of all participating countries Tunis took the 47<sup>th</sup> in mathematics over 50 countries. Despite the abundant resources and reforms undertaken by the educational community Tunisia student suffer from a very low primary quality of education as measured by mathematics test score. This article attempts to find out the impact of the home environment, school resources and teacher quality on the students’ educational achievement at fourth grade in mathematics., we estimate educational production functions using OLS and then repeat the exercise estimating quantile regressions at different part of the score distribution in order to analyze if there are differences in the variables affecting test scores along the scores distribution and not just at the mean of the distribution. The results show that the home environment, school resources and teacher resource are key determinants of primary education performance. In order to to improve primary education performance, it is recommended that policymakers and educational authorities focus on strengthening all three key determinants: enhancing support for families to create a conducive learning environment at home, investing in better school resources and infrastructure, and providing ongoing professional development and support for teachers. By addressing these areas comprehensively, educational institutions can create a more effective and supportive framework that promotes better learning outcomes for all students.