The Flemish Education Minister Zuhal Demir (nationalist) says that from the next school year there will be far fewer days during term time on which children are not taught. Ms Demir believes that currently far too much time that should be used for teaching is lost due to study days for teachers, evaluation days and administrative closures.
The Flemish Education Minister says that there are far too many days during term time when children have to remain at home rather than being taught at school. Demir says this is detrimental to the quality of education in Flemish schools.
“In Flanders, pupils receive about 11% teaching time than the OECD average. In secondary schools, that is up to 22 fewer days per annum”.
Now the Flemish Government plans to tighten the rules. In future if lessons cannot take place during term time, schools will be required to provide supervision on site. This will apply to both primary and secondary education. Furthermore, the supervision must be “educationally useful”. Pupils will only be sent home in cases of “force majeure”.
Primary schools will still maintain a maximum of three half-day study days. There will be compulsory onsite supervision during all of these. In secondary education, study days for teaching staff should no longer lead to lessons being cancelled. Staff meeting to assess and discuss pupils’ performance will have to be reorganised in order to ensure that less teaching time is lost.
Optional additional holiday days will be scrapped and schools will no longer be allowed to close the day after they have been used as a polling station. Administration and/or welcome days will no longer be able to result in lessons being cancelled. The first day of school in September and the last day before the summer holiday will become full teaching days.
In secondary education, the maximum number of evaluation days will be reduced.
Meanwhile, School holidays will remain unchanged and children in Flemish education will continue to enjoy 2 months’ vacation in the summer.