In June last year, the number of students that benefit from a Social Reintegration Revenue (RIS) hit 13,968, compared to just 4,184 in 2003. That’s an increase of 233% in just over 10 years, La Dernière Heure said on Tuesday. One person in seven who gets this financial help from the CPAS is a student.
“Most of these students have parents who are struggling financially, due to our society generally getting poorer. We could also suppose that these young people are the best informed about their rights”, says Claude Emonts, President of the CPAS in Liège.
According to him, there is another trend that also contributes to this increase. For the last few years, “girls from the Muslim community are going into Higher education more and more. It’s not always approved by their entourage. They are therefore finding themselves cut off from their family and needing CPAS to survive”, he said.
(Source: Belga)
