During their final year, students at KHL’s economic higher education department (Echo) have to do an internship, explains Bie Strypens of the department. “But at the last minute, the internship partners of these three students called it off. We think their ethnic origin may have had something to do with it,” she says.
Rachid Aredouani, Mohammed El Mahroui and Rached Ikan opted for a Small Business Project as an alternative. They set up a business to develop the Diversity Game, which allows secondary school students to confront and discuss the issues involved in discrimination in higher education – the better to prepare them to make the move themselves.
The game takes the form of a typical Game of the Goose board where a throw of the dice may land a player on an obstacle. By overcoming the obstacle, the player gains points.
The project received the support not only of the Echo staff but also the Flemish confederation of parents and parents associations (VCOV), which sponsored the development of the game and are publicising it to target groups.
According to VCOV, only 6% of students of immigrant origin in Flanders go on to higher education, compared with around 50% of the population as a whole. The figures for immigrants, according to a 2007 study in the magazine Klasse, are the same as they were for Flemish students 50 years ago – for the New Flemings, it’s as if the last half-century of democratisation of higher education never happened.
An even smaller percentage makes it through the first year: one in five (19%) compared to three in five of the general population. And nearly one in two never gets to the end of the course, compared to 22% for all students.
The reasons, according to Professor Marlies Lacante of the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), are various (see table): their secondary school background tends to be more technical or professional, rather than academic; they are more likely to have had to repeat a year; and they tend to study less and have a worse attendance record. They also tend to come from a more disadvantaged and lesser educated family background.
“For an 18-year-old Fleming who stays away from or fails in higher education, the causes are the same,” says Professor Lacante. “It’s just that these circumstances emerge more often for immigrants, especially from Islamic areas. And the worst thing is that they are visible from early on in primary school.”
This in fact is the background of the Diversity Game’s three developers, who all made it through the three-year Bachelor’s course and are now continuing their education, one in post-Bachelor’s studies and two in a Master’s course.
“The game is based on the obstacles that disadvantaged students can face,” explains Linde Brewaeys of the VCOV. “It helps to convince the students in a playful way that, whatever the obstacle might be, a solution exists.”
The game’s makers, as well as the VCOV, advise its users – schools, youth groups and community workers – to solicit the participation of what in Dutch is called an ervaringsdeskundige, or “experience expert”: someone who’s been through the situation.
“A lot of immigrant young people think they’re going to be all alone to face the world after secondary education,” Strypens said. “For example, they might think a combination of working and studying isn’t feasible. There are a lot of sources of assistance, but they don’t know about them. This game will show them the way.”
Immigrant Flemish
student student
From general studies (aso)
at secondary level 47% 63%
From technical studies (tso) 38 36
From business studies (bso) 15 0.3
Repeated a year 53 21
Parents have secondary
school diploma maximum 56 10
Pass first year 19 56
Drop out before graduation 45 22
Flanders Today is a 
7°C / 18°C
