VGC presents goals for next five years
With new school spots, a bilingual teacher-training programme and a professional learning centre, the Flemish Community Commission is working on multiple fronts to improve Dutch-language teaching in Brussels
New “student affairs” portfolio
The VGC represents the Flemish community in Brussels through various social and cultural institutions. Its budget mainly comes from the Flemish Community and the Brussels-Capital Region, but it is the VGC council and its 17 Dutch-speaking Brussels MPs who decide how these funds are used. Education is one of the VGC’s core responsibilities.
In primary education, the VGC is committing to creating at least 3,000 additional places in the next five years. This expansion will be needed to respond to the recent explosive population growth in the capital and the growing interest in Dutch-language education.
The VGC will also make additional investments in secondary education with, for example, large infrastructure works to develop three campuses in the districts of Koekelberg, Anderlecht and Schaarbeek. The VGC agreement also underlines the need for more education support for secondary schools.
“At the moment, this support in secondary schools is too limited and too dependent on the questions of schools,” the council members write in the agreement. The VGC will also carry on its efforts to re-evaluate technical and professional education in the Brussels-Capital Region in the next government term.
Perfect bilingualism
Multilingualism is another crucial component of the VGC’s plan. Just like the recently unveiled Brussels government agreement, the VGC’s agreement recommends the establishment of a bilingual teacher-training programme in collaboration with the French-speaking Community. The council members hope this will be the first step toward general bilingual education in Brussels.
We need perfectly bilingual directors, teachers and secretarial staff
Brussels finance minister and chair of the new VGC council Guy Vanhengel explained his vision of bilingual education during a recent council meeting on the governing agreement, covered by brusselnieuws.be.
“We need perfectly bilingual principals, teachers and secretarial staff,” he said, “but we can’t find the right staff for this purpose on the labour market now.” Vanhengel therefore recommends the launch of a trial project with a bilingual training programme for teachers, “which should in the long term lead to perfectly bilingual directors.”
In that meeting, Vanhengel also pointed to the example of European schools, where children are taught in three or four languages and both teachers and principals perfectly speak at least two languages. Vanhengel also told regional TV station TV Brussel that a bilingual teacher education programme could be established by September 2015 if all goes according to plan.
Tackling high drop-out rates
The Brussels government agreement, which was also recently presented, states that the Brussels Capital-Region will stimulate immersion education in one of the national languages from primary school and even pre-school. Knowledge exchanges between teachers from the different language communities, networks and schools should also be made easier.
The VGC council also wants to encourage schools to examine the possibility of providing a limited number of courses in a language other than Dutch – something the Brussels government agreement did not do.
One of the critical problems facing Dutch-language education in Brussels is the large number of students who fail to obtain a degree – almost one in five students. By establishing a professional centre for learning advice and guidance, the VGC wants to tackle those high drop-out rates as well as absenteeism.
Another novelty this government term is that two ministers will also become responsible for student affairs. Minister-president Rudi Vervoort will handle student affairs in the Brussels government, while Vanhengel will do the same for the VGC. Their responsibilities will include student housing, mobility, safety and image-building.
The student councils of both the Dutch and French-language Free University of Brussels, Brussels University College, Erasmus University College and LUCA School of Arts had demanded the new ministerial portfolio in the run-up to the May elections.
Photo courtesy VUB
Educational system
million school-going children in 2013
million euros Flemish education budget for new school infrastructures in 2013
percent of boys leaving secondary school without a diploma
- Education in Flanders
- Secondary education reform
- European Encyclopaedia on National Education Systems
