How Belgium's System Insiders Manipulate Children

Teacher unions in Belgium's French-speaking Community are orchestrating protests against a new education reform, sparking scenes of unrest in Brussels and other towns. The reform, deemed unavoidable by the regional government, seeks to tackle a substantial budget deficit and a growing teacher shortage.

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The Belgian teacher unions provide a shocking example of a lack of civic spirit. The main thing is noise: Scene from the protests against the education reform in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation on Monday.

The core of the reform involves increasing the teaching load for educators in the top three years of secondary school from 20 to 22 hours per week, without a corresponding increase in salary. This change is intended to help compensate for the loss of 2,170 full-time teaching positions annually, with the reform expected to cover around 1,300 of those losses. The French-speaking Community faces a significant deficit, with teacher salaries accounting for 80% of its 1.6 billion euro annual shortfall.

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The reform of teacher status in the upper secondary schools is and has been causing heated scenes on the streets for days.

Despite the government's rationale, teacher unions, described as "system insiders" organized in competing factions, have mobilized opposition. They have reportedly encouraged students to participate in protests, leading to visual displays of dissent, such as handmade posters calling for the "rescue of education." Some older students have apparently used these protests as an opportunity for disruptive behavior. In one incident in La Louvière, police arrested 15 youths during a "student protest," finding fireworks, firecrackers, and telescopic batons in their backpacks.

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2,170 full-time positions are lost by the Federation per year, the Ministry of Education states. Around 1,300 of these are to be compensated by the reform.