What this exam is
Algeria recruits into most civil service grades through a “concours” (competition), but the word covers two genuinely different mechanisms, and the difference matters. Executive Decree No. 07-123 of 23 April 2007, made under Ordinance No. 06-03 of 15 July 2006 on the general statute of the civil service, sets out three modalities: a competition decided on qualifications alone (concours sur titres), a competition decided on written and/or oral tests (concours sur epreuves), and a mixed competition combining both. Algeria’s largest, best known recruitment drive, the Ministry of Education’s teacher competition, is run as a concours sur titres: candidates are ranked by an automated points system applied to their diploma, additional qualifications and professional experience, with a final oral interview, and there is no written test at any stage. This page is about a different grade, recruited the other way, through a real written exam.
The grade is Educateur d’Animation de la Jeunesse (youth animation educator), run by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Access to the specialised training that leads to this grade is decided by a concours sur epreuves: a written test, held on one date at a small number of national training institutes, that candidates actually have to pass before they are admitted to training and, eventually, appointed.
Who takes it, and where
The exam is organised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports’ Human Resources Directorate and sat at the National Institutes of Advanced Training for Youth and Sports Cadres, known by the French acronym INFS/CJS, which the ministry operates at Oran, Constantine and Ouargla. A fourth testing site, an annex of the Ouargla institute hosted at the University of Adrar, serves candidates from the far south.
In the most recently completed full session, held on 25 December 2024, 4,636 candidates sat the written exam across those four sites. Admission lists for the specialised training that follows were posted at all four institutes on 13 January 2025. That is a real, dated, sourced instance of the exam actually being administered, not a projection.
A newer tranche, reserved by region
Following a Council of Ministers instruction of 23 June 2024 to reinforce youth-sector staffing in Algeria’s southern and border wilayas, the government created 1,366 new budgeted posts for this grade, split into two tranches: 60 percent opened for the 2025 cycle and the remaining 40 percent for 2026. Unlike the 2024 session above, this tranche is reserved for candidates domiciled in a named list of southern and border wilayas, including Tindouf, Illizi, Bordj Badji Mokhtar, Maghnia, Beni Abbes, Beni Ounif, Timiaouine, Tin Zaouatine, In Guezzam and Taleb Arbi. The written exam for the first phase of this tranche began on 31 August 2025. A related but distinct competition, for the more senior grade of Educateur Principal charge de l’Animation de la Jeunesse in the same border zones, opened 150 posts for a 2026 session, and the ministry announced that 173 appeals from candidates initially excluded from that competition were accepted and the candidates reinstated.
Because this is a regionally reserved tranche layered on top of the standing national grade, the eligibility conditions, the exact written test content and the exam date are set afresh in each session’s own ministerial decision, the same way they are for the 2024 national session above.
What this page does not yet cover
No single sourced figure covers every candidate who has ever sat this exam, and the research behind this page found no aggregate figure larger than the 4,636 candidates of the 25 December 2024 session, which this page states as the concrete instance it is rather than inflating it into a national total it is not. The exact written test subjects and marking weights for the current session were not confirmed either; the individual session’s ministerial decision, published by the Ministry of Youth and Sports ahead of registration, is the only reliable source for those details for a given year. Candidates should check that decision directly rather than treating any figure on this page as fixed across every session.