Students in teacher training courses who wear a headscarf are increasingly unable to find internships at Flemish schools, leading to an unsustainable situation as the region struggles with a teacher shortage while schools reject viable candidates.
Lecturers at several Flemish universities and colleges sounded the alarm earlier this week, stating that the headscarf ban in place in several schools is leading to students needing more time to finish their studies because they cannot find an internship, while others are dropping out.
"In the past, we always got the students placed. Now we just cannot offer some of them an internship," Gert Naessens of Odisee Hogeschool's teacher training told Het Laatste Nieuws. Sofie Landuyt, who is responsible for the education programme at Artevelde University College in Ghent agreed: "Students are refused purely because they wear a headscarf."
The leader of the socialist Vooruit party Conner Rousseau said on VRT's television programme 'De Afspraak' on Tuesday that whether or not a teacher wears a headscarf should not be important, especially in light of Flanders' chronic teacher shortage.
Neutrality in front of the classroom
"There are currently parents whose children are denied lessons for up to six hours a week just because they do not have a teacher," said Rousseau. "At the same time, young people with talent are waiting to start teaching. Simply put: I am in favour of more teachers, whether they wear a headscarf or not is absolutely not an issue for me."
"Neutrality, because that is what this is often about, is in what you do, not in what you wear," Rousseau said. "I think teaching should be neutral, but that is not the same as how someone looks. I also do not want a fascist teacher who gives history classes and denies the Holocaust. That is what the curricula are for. These things can be checked, also for people without a headscarf."
He added that the government should be happy that there are still young people who choose education. "We need all that talent to raise the level of our education again. It shows once again that right-wing identitarian symbol discussions threaten our prosperity. Because of the lack of teachers, the quality of education is just deteriorating."
Flemish MP for Green Elisabeth Meuleman is urging the government to lift the ban on wearing headscarves in the classroom. "The teacher shortage is huge. The Flemish Government should encourage everyone who wants to become a teacher. Instead, it erects barriers for thousands of motivated women who have to put away their educational dreams before they can ever start."
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Luc Sels, Chancellor of KU Leuven, is also calling for the headscarf ban to be reviewed. "Now we are losing a lot of talent. Expertise and commitment matter. Checking whether these are on point is something you do when you recruit," he said.
However, that does not mean that a solution is in the making, as a few universities and colleges issued a cry for help in De Standaard earlier this week. Some students have to extend their studies because schools refuse them an internship if they want to wear a headscarf in front of the class.
"It seems perfectly admissible for a school not to want teachers to wear ostentatious signs of religious affiliation," said Flemish Education Minister Ben Weyts, a member of the rightwing N-VA party, on Twitter. "I fully support those schools. Candidate teachers who do not want to respect the choice of the school apparently have a higher calling than teaching."
The Christian-Democrat CD&V party is also in favour of letting school principals decide for themselves whether to ban the wearing of a headscarf in class. "Schools have the freedom to make that assessment themselves," said Flemish MP for CD&V Hilâl Yalçin. "Limiting that freedom is not a solution to the teacher shortage."
For the leader of the Flemish liberal Open VLD party Egbert Lachaert, schools and networks should decide for themselves whether wearing religious and philosophical signs is opportune. "The government or politicians should not impose any rules on what to do, as far as we are concerned. They choose themselves."
However, the question remains what must be done to allow the students involved to complete their studies. CD&V is thinking more along the lines of structural reforms such as the long-awaited teacher career pact, but that does not offer a solution in the short term.
