The number of children in Flemish education that leave primary school without having met the criteria necessary for them to have been given a primary school diploma has almost doubled in just 5 years. The figures come from ‘Onderwijzer’ a tool providing information and data on Flemish education that was developped for the daily ‘Het Nieuwsblad’.
Home News
Number of children leaving primary school without a diploma has doubled in 5 years
Published:
Children without a primary school diploma enter the so-called ‘B-Stream’ when the reach secondary school. Those that start secondary school in the B-Stream almost always end up following vocational, rather than academic courses as their secondary school career progresses.
In 2023 4,800 children failed to get a diploma at the end of their last year at primary school. This is up from 2,600 children at the end of the 2017-2018 school year.
Moreover, a growing number of pupils are going directly from the 4th or 5th year of primary school to the first-year B-Stream class at secondary school. They are able to do this if they are already 12 years old.
Antwerp Province
The situation has become so bad in Antwerp Province that some children are unable to find a place in a B-Stream class.
Experts say that while learning difficulties play a role, an increase in the number of children that speak other languages that Dutch in the home is also serving to increase the number of pupils leaving primary school without a diploma.