2022
Update in March :
24/02/2022 The Government definitively approved, in 3rd reading, the draft decree on the adaptation of annual school rhythms, from the start of the 2022-2023 school year, for all types and levels of compulsory education. This text sets out the various provisions necessary to ensure the practical implementation of the reform of annual school rhythms and establishes the principles that will govern the organisation of the school year and school holidays in the future. It also establishes the calendars for the next two school years. The draft decree also includes a series of adjustment measures for out-of-school care and will be accompanied by additional measures for the youth sector to ensure a harmonious and coherent application of the reform. The text also presents transitional mechanisms allowing to favour as much as possible the convergences between the school calendar of the French Community and those of the other Communities, without however derogating from the essential principles of the reform. The philosophy of the reform, designed to better respond to the well-being of the young learners, is to follow the "7+2" model, alternating 7 weeks of classes followed by 2 weeks of holidays.
2021
Update in September :
09/09/2021 The Government of the French Community decided to renew the financing of the "Itinérances" project. This project, run by the Belgian Red Cross in collaboration with the Relais enfants-parents and the services for prisoners, aims to take care of the journey of prisoners' children to prison when their families or relatives are unable to take them there.
09/09/2021 The Government of the French Community approved a guidance note on the prevention of bullying and school climate. The ambition is to be part of a broader vision of school climate, which includes factors of school violence but also school justice, cooperation, coeducation and quality of life at school. This approach makes it possible to develop a framework for action that is appropriate for each school and that looks beyond the author-victim relationship to include the school community as a whole.
02/09/2021 The Government of the French Community adopted in second and final reading the draft decree relating to the investment plan for school buildings drawn up in the framework of the European recovery and resilience plan. Its implementation will make it possible to mobilise 230 million euros (out of the 495 million euros of European resources) increased by a leverage effect. In total, nearly €400 million will be invested in renovating schools in Wallonia and Brussels. To select the renovation projects, objective criteria will be used to highlight the most qualitative projects in terms of climate, digital and educational transition.
02/09/2021 The Government of the French Community approved the launch of a call for projects, for a total amount of 300,000 euros, aiming at fighting against homophobic, biphobic and transphobic discrimination and violence. This first call for projects aims to support the development, by associations, organisations and institutions working directly or indirectly in the field of LGBTQI+ people's rights or discrimination, of initiatives dealing with the prevention of violence against these people.
17/06/2021 The Government of the French Community voted the decree on the creation of the Territorial Poles in charge of supporting ordinary schools in the implementation of reasonable accommodation and permanent full integration and the decree amending the Decree of 3 March 2004 organising special education in order to abolish temporary full integration.
12/05/2021 The Government of the French Community approved the guidance note on the revision of annual school rhythms, which confirms the decision to revise school rhythms for all types and levels of compulsory education from the start of the 2022-2023 school year. The philosophy of the reform is to follow the "7+2" model, alternating 7 weeks of classes followed by 2 weeks of holidays. The consequences are the lengthening of the All Saints' and Carnival holidays (two weeks instead of one for each of these holidays) and the shortening of the summer holidays. The 2022-2023 school year will therefore start on the last Monday of August (29th) and end on the first Friday of July (7th). This is an important change that will only affect pupils in the French Community. This organization of the year is designed to better respond to the well-being of the child, and is defended, in particular, by several chronobiologists and pedagogues. According to them, the summer holidays were too long for the pupils, who were disconnected from school and learning for too long. Conversely, a single week's holiday in the first and second terms was too little to allow pupils to breathe effectively.
08/04/2021 The Government of the French Community decided on the amounts allocated to each of the sheets of its investment plan so that all the projects submitted correspond to 100% of the amount obtained within the framework of the European recovery plan.
18/03/2021 The Government of the French Community approved, in first reading, the draft modification of the decree "Enrolment". Set up in order to regulate the enrolment process in first secondary school, the "enrolment" decree aims at making the enrolment of all pupils in the French Community more transparent, while guaranteeing all parents a real freedom in the choice of the school for their children. The Government wished to rethink the mechanism by simplifying it, in particular for schools presumed to be incomplete, and by adjusting it to the realities on the ground. The changes can be summarised as follows : - A major simplification for incomplete schools ; - More transparent and faster communication to parents and pupils ; - Decentralised bodies to be more in tune with the realities on the ground and to respond to the parents' needs ; - A stronger social mix ; - A better optimised composite index. The real challenge is to create places and improve the attractiveness of certain schools. Although the “enrolment” decree aims to regulate the enrolment process in the first secondary school and to guarantee the same opportunities for all pupils, it will never be able to completely solve the problem encountered by some schools : the demand for places is greater than the number of places available. In order to respond structurally to this problem and to guarantee parents' freedom of choice, the Government of the French Community will continue to work on the creation of places, but even more on improving the attractiveness of certain schools.
13/03/2021 Dozens of schools in the compulsory education and social promotion sectors received reconditioned PCs in recent months thanks to the mobilisation of the Administration's services. In total, more than 3,500 computers were distributed and made available to pupils to combat the digital divide.
This action was set up by the French Community to help pupils from the 3rd year of secondary education onwards and students in social advancement education to follow courses online. In total, almost 3,500 computers were distributed by the French Community since the beginning of the health crisis thanks to the excellent collaboration between the teams.
11/03/2021 The Governments of the Brussels-Capital Region, the French Community and the College of the French Community Commission agreed to draw up a cooperation agreement with a view to strengthening the joint commitments made by the Region and the Communities to meet the specific needs of education and early childhood in Brussels. Five priorities are highlighted as challenges to be met in order to guarantee a quality school, free and accessible to all : - meeting the demographic challenge ; - supporting the school retention of young people in difficulty and fighting against school segregation ; - fighting against child poverty and deprivation ; - revolutionising language learning ; - adopting a specific approach to early childhood. The Governments of the French Community, the Brussels-Capital Region and the Collège of the French Community Commission initiated a joint work to support the creation of early childhood places for the period 2021-2025. This strategy aims to create 2,100 places by December 2025 in the Brussels-Capital Region. These new places are part of a more global strategy covering the entire territory of the French Community and continuing the work begun under the Cigogne III plan adopted during the previous legislature.
04/03/2021 The Government adopted, in first reading, the draft decree aiming at fixing the supports and resources allocated to the "Schools in adjustment mechanism". Within the framework of the reforms aiming at improving the quality of our education system and at reducing school inequalities, a special support is foreseen for a certain number of schools in great difficulty, called "Schools in adjustment mechanism". In concrete terms, these "Schools in adjustment mechanism" are identified on the basis of a comparative analysis of four reference indicators linked to pupils' results, their background, the school climate and the dynamics within the educational teams. The objective of this identification is to allow schools thus recognised to benefit from an adjustment mechanism via close support for the time necessary to reduce the difficulties and for a maximum period of three years. This support system is characterised in particular by an audit and diagnosis carried out by the General Inspectorate and by adjustment targets set by the Government. On this basis, the school is invited to build, in consultation with its educational team and with the support of its Organising Authority, its action plan to meet these objectives. To this end, the government and the Federations of Organising Authorities provide schools with support and resources. This unprecedented scheme should help to strengthen the equity of the school system, through the effects it will have on the pupils attending the schools concerned. The gradual reduction of repetition and dropout are also at the heart of the project, in complementarity with other projects of the Pact for Excellence in Teaching.
2020
September update :
09/07/2020 As a result of an adjustment of federal legislation, compulsory education in Belgium begins from the age of 5 years old – instead of 6 – as of the school year 2020-2021. With this measure, the federal government aims to ensure that all children have attended the kindergarten level for at least one year, to facilitate their adaptation to the primary education and making this transition as smooth as possible. As a result, all children born in 2015 – hence turning 5 in 2020 and regardless of their actual birth month – are subject to compulsory schooling as of 1 September 2020. In concrete terms, compulsory schooling implies a regular attendance in kindergarten and in a full-time basis. Per principle, all absences must be documented by medical certificates, however, absences may be approved in certain cases – depending on specific school regulations.
22/06/2020 Circular letter 7624: Organisation of a 3rd P Polyvalent (3rd year of secondary education (VET)) for the school year 2020-2021, on a voluntary basis. The aim is to better equip and prepare the student to make a choice, by emphasising the orientation character of the 3rd year. Moreover, the approach makes sense if it is also in line with the strategic objective entitled "Developing the educational approach to guidance" of the Pact for Excellence in Teaching, by organising, within the timetable, periods of lessons or activities devoted to guidance. The schools concerned highlighted the following needs :
- to respond to the modification of the offer linked to the organisation of the Certification by Units (CPU) experiment in 4-5-6 : from now on, a student may find himself/herself at the end of the 3rd year faced with a new choice, which enables him/her to start earlier on a qualifying pathway centred on a specific trade ;
- to meet the growing demand for help to students in their questioning in connection with the maturing of their personal choices ;
- to provide a response to the problem of the 3rd year of vocational education, which concentrates students who are often behind academically and have 'ended up' in a specific grouped basic option without necessarily having made this choice in a positive way.
March update :
20/02 On the proposal of the Minister of Education, the Government of the French Community approved, on first reading, the draft decree on the implementation of differentiation and personalised support systems in primary and secondary education. As a reminder, a pilot project was launched with a view to developing the most appropriate tools and methods for generalizing two periods of personalized support in the timetable of all pupils as part of the gradual implementation of the common core curriculum from September 2021. In order to carry out the experiment, the schools benefit from additional resources and an evaluation of all the elements is carried out by a university research team. The Government decided to extend this pilot experiment for another year. Personalized support is an extremely important measure for meeting the objectives of improving student performance while taking into account the needs of each individual and fighting school inequalities and repetition. In concrete terms, for both primary and secondary education, the Government will continue to provide the resources in 2020-2021 to carry out these pilot experiments. For basic education, the aim will be to inject a further 1,500 class periods :
- 500 periods will be reserved for the schools enrolled in the project initiated in 2019, in order to ensure a follow-up and transition before the arrival of the Common Core in first and second primary. These schools will also benefit from the monitoring of 2 university researchers in order to continue the collection of information and to allow the implementation of structural support within the framework of the common core ;
- 1,000 periods will be used to relaunch the pilot experiment in some fifty new schools, with an extension to basic skills, whereas previously only reading was targeted.