TUNIS, Tunisia — Teachers in Tunisia moved out of their classrooms and into the streets recently, hoping yet another strike would teach a lesson to those who control public education's purse strings.

The April 17-24 strike was the latest move in a long-standing feud that threatens to throw the school calendar so far off that administrators are threatening to declare what they're calling a "gap year." If that happens, elementary and secondary students would neither pass nor fail, nor would they receive any credit for their work this year.

Though teachers resumed classes April 25, they continue to withhold exam results from the first semester as leverage in negotiations and are threatening to withhold the second semester's results as well.

Tunisian teachers staged massive protests late last year and again in February and March, voicing years of frustration and raising an ongoing call for improved wages and increased human and material resources. They are also seeking implementation of a 2011 agreement acknowledging teaching as the second most demanding profession after mining. That classification calls for higher wages and pensions. Teachers are also seeking to lower their retirement age from 60 to 55 after 30 years of service.