“We need to stop pretending that every non-Dutch-speaking child in Dutch-language education is a burden. We should be happy about every Brussels child who wants to learn Dutch,” writes Brussels school director Bruno De Lille Battaille.
Parents who cannot find a school place for their child have every right to be angry. Everyone sympathises with the mothers and fathers who, after weeks of anxious waiting, are told that there is no place after all at the school of their choice. Or at the second, third or fourth school they listed. If your child ends up on a waiting list, no one can expect you to react coolly and rationally. It is perfectly understandable that, at that moment, you focus entirely on your own very real and very urgent problem.
But we should expect something different from a minister. The fact that, as a society, we are failing to provide enough good Dutch-language schools for all the children who want to attend them is shameful. The fact that, as Dutch speakers, we are thereby undermining our own position in Brussels is foolish. And the fact that politicians are using parents’ legitimate frustration to divide Brussels children into first-class and second-class pupils and pit them against one another is beneath contempt.
I realise that sounds harsh, but over the past few years I have unfortunately met several parents who begged me to somehow find a seat for their child. When you cannot offer them a solution, you are left feeling almost as defeated as they are. And you understand very clearly that this is not some abstract problem on paper, but something for which we genuinely need to find a solution.
A real solution, moreover, for every parent and every child who finds themselves in this situation.
Because telling one child, “You are automatically welcome,” simply because their parents happen to be Dutch-speaking, while telling another, “And you can come only if there happens to be a place left,” because their parents speak another language — even when that child may already have spent nine years in Dutch-language primary education — strikes me as deeply problematic.
Don’t get me wrong: of course Dutch-speaking children who want to attend a Dutch-language school must be able to do so. But in my view, it is also a major problem if non-Dutch-speaking children who choose our education system are unable to get in.
If that is what is happening, then we need more schools. The solution is not to turn those other children into second-class pupils.
The flaw in the reasoning is that the Flemish Parliament apparently still assumes that Brussels residents can be neatly divided into two clearly defined groups: there are the Dutch-speaking residents of Brussels — the Flemings, quoi — and there are the French speakers. From that perspective, you can indeed think: “Everyone looks after their own.”
Except that this tidy, straightforward and, above all, convenient story bears little resemblance to the reality of Brussels today. The 2024 Language Barometer, for example, shows that one third of Brussels residents grow up in a household where neither Dutch nor French is spoken.
Oops. What do we do with them?
If the Flemish and French Communities — both of which face shortages of school places because of capacity pressures — were to reserve their schools for children from their own language group, what would we do with that almost 30 per cent of Brussels residents who speak another language? Would our city, our society, really be better off if we simply left those people to fend for themselves? And how can we even contemplate such a thing in a wealthy country like ours?
Quite apart from the ethical problem this should pose for us, it is not legally permissible either.
A few years ago, Belgium’s Constitutional Court ruled that giving priority for up to 65 per cent of places to pupils with at least one parent who has a sufficient command of Dutch may be legitimate in order to preserve the Dutch-language character of the education system and promote pupils’ language development. But the Court also ruled that the percentage cannot be so high that Dutch-language education no longer takes in a fair share of non-Dutch-speaking pupils. In other words, it must remain a priority rule. It cannot become a rule of exclusion.
Moreover, we need to stop pretending that every non-Dutch-speaking child in Dutch-language education is a burden. We should be happy about every Brussels child who wants to learn Dutch. Genuinely happy.
Because what is it that we actually want?
To complain that you cannot be served in Dutch in Brussels, while at the same time pushing away children who want to learn Dutch? To hand out Flemish flags to every Brussels resident on 11 July, while making the most important tool we have for spreading Dutch and strengthening its position more selective and less effective? To say that Brussels is our capital, while treating Brussels residents who seek a connection with the Flemish Community as a nuisance?
Dutch-language education in Brussels is one of the strongest levers Flanders has for keeping Dutch alive and present in the city. Not because all those pupils will later become “Flemings” — they will not. But because they will be able to speak Dutch with their neighbours, their friends, their colleagues, their customers, their patients… Because they help ensure that every Fleming and everyone who speaks Dutch can feel a little more at home in Brussels.
There was a time when Flanders regarded that as an honourable objective and fully embraced it. That was the era in which the Brusselnorm, the Brussels benchmark, was introduced. Under that benchmark, the Flemish Community considered 30 per cent of the Brussels population to be the target group for its policies. Or rather, considers. Because the Brussels Policy Paper 2024–2029 by Flemish Minister for Brussels and Media Cieltje Van Achter still states that the Brussels benchmark is not an empty promise, but a commitment that the current government fully endorses.
So perhaps Flanders is already doing more than it promised? Is that why our education minister is backing away?
No.
According to figures from the Brussels Institute for Statistics and Analysis for compulsory education, in the 2023–2024 school year 27.2 per cent of children in pre-primary education, 21.8 per cent of primary-school pupils and 18.9 per cent of secondary-school pupils attended Dutch-language schools. Across all levels, the figure was 21.7 per cent. That is more children than there are Dutch-speaking families in the Brussels-Capital Region, but still nowhere near the 30 per cent envisaged by the Brussels benchmark.
There is another point that is rarely mentioned in this debate. Children attending Dutch-language schools are taken into account in the financing of the Flemish Community through the pupil-based allocation formula for VAT revenues. If more Brussels children aged 6 to 17 attend Dutch-language schools, Flanders’ share under that formula increases.
That does not, of course, mean that these children simply generate a “big profit”. They also need to receive a good education, and that costs money. But it does undermine the image of Flanders simply paying for the education of Brussels children without receiving anything in return.
And then, of course, there is the recurring debate about the quality of our schools in Brussels. The argument is that quality is being dragged down by the large number of non-Dutch-speaking pupils. You hear it from politicians. You hear it from quite a few of our teachers too. So surely it must be true?
It is indeed easier to teach a class in which all pupils speak Dutch well than a class in which several pupils have limited Dutch-language proficiency. It is also more difficult to help those pupils reach the required educational standards.
But lowering the bar is not something we are going to do. That merely shifts the problem elsewhere. And by keeping pupils with weaker Dutch out of our schools, we may make life somewhat easier for some teachers, but we saddle both those pupils and society with a lifelong problem.
Are we really going to claim that Dutch-language education is so weak that it can only function if we keep difficult challenges outside the school gates? That a good command of Dutch must not be a pedagogical challenge, but a selection criterion? I have more faith in our schools and our teachers than that. We do not do that with mathematics either, do we? We do not say: children whose parents have not taught them to count to one hundred do not belong in our schools. We do not do it with STEM either. We do not exclude pupils because they were not taught Newton’s laws at home. You go to school precisely in order to learn.
And yes, the needs of our pupils are different from those of 50 or 30 years ago. But that is true everywhere. So we adapt. We look for appropriate teaching methods. We do what schools are supposed to do. Preferably together.
Because anyone advocating 100 per cent priority for Dutch speakers knows — or ought to know — what the consequences will be. The most popular schools, those with the strongest reputation and greatest appeal, will fill up with children who fall within the priority category. And those tend to be children from families that are, on average, among the most economically advantaged. Schools with a less established reputation will then end up with a concentration of much more vulnerable pupils. And their linguistic challenge will become even greater.
That is not how you build strong Dutch-language education.
That is how you recreate so-called “white” and “black” schools.
And I can already hear the same people who are now arguing for 100 per cent priority complaining tomorrow about why we should continue supporting schools whose pupils are almost entirely non-Dutch-speaking. As though that were not the almost entirely predictable consequence of the choices they are advocating today. Of policies that sort children instead of providing enough good schools.
If the minister is genuinely so concerned about education in Brussels, she should not be tinkering with enrolment rules.
The real discussion should be about how we create enough strong Dutch-language schools. How we make schools with a more difficult image more attractive. How we support teachers working in multilingual classrooms. How we teach Dutch more effectively to children who speak another language at home. How we prevent vulnerable schools from becoming ever more vulnerable.
We must not turn Brussels into an education market in which the strongest parents win and the most vulnerable children are passed on to someone else.
And that supposed “surplus” of school places in 2030 that some people already seem to fear is not a problem.
We need it.
Freedom of education requires some breathing space. Freedom of choice does not exist if there are exactly as many seats as there are children. In that situation, you simply have to hope you are lucky in the lottery, queue up and take whatever is left. A certain degree of spare capacity is therefore not wasteful. It should be an objective. Parents are entitled to shout when their child cannot find a school place. That is human. A minister has to do more.
Brussels does not need even more polarisation at the school gates. Brussels needs places. Quality. Teachers. Language policy. Mixed schools. Trust. And politicians who understand that all of us benefit when more children in Brussels learn Dutch.
>> Please note that this is a machine generated translation.