Speaking other languages now allowed in Ghent schools

Many Dutch-language schools in Flanders require children to speak Dutch everywhere on the school premises and penalise those who do otherwise. For Decruynaere, that’s a counterproductive approach. “Because of this ideological obstinacy, many children with a foreign background now leave primary education with a language deficit,” she told De Standaard newspaper.

Decruynaere clarified that the purpose of the directive wasn't to teach children in their own language. But, she said, an 11-year-old Bulgarian child should, for instance, be able to give advice to a younger Bulgarian pupil in their shared native language. “You also shouldn’t punish children because they speak their own language on playgrounds,” she said.

The initiative is being applauded by Piet Van Avermaet, a lecturer in multicultural studies at the University of Ghent and director of the university’s Centre for Diversity & Learning. According to Van Avermaet, research shows that children pick up a second language faster when they have first learned to speak their mother tongue fluently. “So the better children of foreign origin know their first language, the faster they will make cognitive links with Dutch,” he says.

Van Avermaet carried out tests in schools where children with a foreign background are allowed to speak their mother tongue on the playground. The scores of these children on Dutch-language tests were similar to those of children in schools with mandatory Dutch.

The Ghent measure has also attracted criticism, notably from N-VA politicians Zuhal Demir and Peter De Roover. In an op-ed published by De Standaard, they said that the measure was essentially “akin to apartheid”. According to the politicians, the measure will cause children to primarily befriend children with the same origins and make it more difficult for teachers to keep control over their classrooms because they won’t understand everything that is being said.

Demir and De Roover also feel that more and more children of foreign descent simply see Dutch as their “own language”. For them, these children shouldn’t be treated like foreigners just because their parents or grandparents speak a different language.