Some 900,000 pupils in French-speaking education are returning to school on Monday (today) after the shortened summer holidays following the reform of the school year calendar. On the same day, teachers unions have submitted a strike notice.
Pupils in Wallonia and the French-speaking parts of Brussels are starting the school year a week earlier than the usual first Monday of September, and will also end it a week later than the regular last week of June. To compensate, an extra week of holiday will be added to both the All Saints holidays (in autumn) and Carnival (in spring), making them two weeks long, instead of just one.
However, numerous reforms in recent months and years have caused a great deal of discontent in the French-speaking education world, leading to unions filing a strike notice on the first day of the academic year.
The timing is "not ideal," Francophone Education Minister Caroline Désir told Bel RTL. "It is absolutely necessary to be able to go to school, so above all, I would like to find serenity. I want to reach out to the unions to work on their demands."
'Not an easy pill to swallow'
However, she also stressed that she had already "considerably" consulted with them during the legislature. "We worked on this file for 30 months. We responded to their requests as well as possible to to protect the rights of the staff as well as possible."
The unions are particularly opposing the decree on the development of skills and evaluation of teachers that was approved on 19 July. From now on, teachers will be evaluated, and these evaluations could lead to dismissal – if no progress is observed after the establishment of individual support for the teacher.
"Today, in all professions, we are evaluated. I do not see why teachers would not be evaluated because it also contributes to the quality of the school," said Minister-President of Belgium's French-speaking Community Pierre-Yves Jeholet. "It might not be an easy pill to swallow for certain unions, but the reform was voted in Parliament during the holidays and we intend to see it through."
Meanwhile, Secretary General of the French-speaking Christian education union CSC-Enseignement, Roland Lahaye, told Belga News Agency that "the teachers need rest. They should be given the opportunity to make the reforms their own, without additional new ones."
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In Flanders, some are calling for schools to follow the example of French-language education and to shorten the summer holidays to limit the learning loss of pupils.
Flemish Education Minister Ben Weyts, however, has repeatedly stated that the debate has already taken place and that the Flemish Education Council (Vlor) and the Social-Economic Council of Flanders (SERV) found that there is currently no support to structure the school year differently.
"Everyone agrees that learning loss occurs during a holiday, but the question is when that happens," he said. "I am not ruling anything out for the future, but before we change anything there must be some scientific evidence."
