According to figures released earlier this week by the Brussels Institute for Statistics and Analysis (BISA), around half of all schoolchildren in the Brussels-Capital Region live less than 1.2km as the crow flies from their school.
However, the distance from a pupil’s home to their school varies greatly according to whether they are at kindergarten, primary or secondary school. Not surprisingly, there are also big differences in the distance between home and school depending on the area of the city in which the child lives.
Children that are at kindergarten travel an average of 0.7km to their school. This increases to an average distance of 0.9km for primary school pupils. Secondary school pupils travel an average of 2km from home to school. Children that attend schools that cater for pupils with special needs travel the furthest, an average of 3.5km.
Among Brussels pupils that attend Dutch-medium schools the average distance between home and school is 1.5km. This is 1.1km for those in French-medium education. The discrepancy can in part at least be explained by the fact that 13% of the children in Brussels that are educated in Dutch go to school in Flemish Brabant municipalities that are adjacent to Brussels such as Dilbeek, Zaventem and Vilvoorde.
Walking distance
The majority of children in Brussels that attend kindergarten or primary school do so close to home and within walking distance. Nevertheless, 38% of those that attend kindergarten and 46% of those that attend primary school live further than 1km from their school. Between 8% and 9% even live further than 4km from the school they attend. These are more often than not taken to school by car or on public transport rather than by bicycle or on foot.
Of the pupils that attend secondary school, 75% live more than 1km from their school. The greater distance travelled by secondary school pupils is for a great part linked to the availability of schools offering a particular course or type of education. The more young people specialise, the further they travel.
Longer distances
For pupils of school that provide technical and vocational education the median distance travelled between home and school is greater than among those that attend secondary schools that offer academic courses.
Pupils of schools that provide education to those with special needs travel much further to school than other children. This is the case across the board from kindergarten to secondary school. Many pupils with special needs are taken to school on the school bus.
On average, children that live in the centre of Brussels and in the (parts of) municipalities adjacent to the centre of town live closer to school than those that live in the outer suburbs. Nevertheless, there is still a considerable number of children in central areas of the city that travel more than 4km to school.