Weyts does not want to gear school holidays in municipalities with facilities to the French-language scheme | Inland

In French-speaking Belgium, it was decided last year to organize school holidays differently from this year. The new school year 2022-2023 starts on Monday, August 29 and will be completed on Friday, July 7, 2023. To compensate, an additional week will be added during both the autumn and spring break. Nothing will change for the Christmas and Easter holidays: they will continue for two weeks.

In Flanders, the debate about the different organization of school holidays is still ongoing. Proponents of shortening the summer holiday see this as a way to limit the learning deficit. Weyts has requested advice from the Flemish Education Council (Vlor) and the Social-Economic Council of Flanders. According to the N-VA minister, the advice of the Vlor is expected before the end of the current school year.

Meuleman does believe in the benefits of a redistribution of school holidays. She also presented to Minister Weyts the way to work in the municipalities with facilities with pilot projects in which the French-language regulation would be followed.

That suggestion fell on a cold stone for Minister Weyts. “I respect the decision that has been made on the French-speaking side. But in those municipalities with facilities we follow the holiday scheme of the Flemish Community. We are not going to give the schools there a more separate status than they already have. We are not going to make them extensions of the French Community in Flanders,” said the N-VA minister.

Vlaams Belang MP Jan Laeremans went a step further and called Meuleman’s suggestion “pure madness”. “This is ‘Anschluss’. Do you realize what you are doing? This would be disastrous for Flanders and the ultimate dream of the French speakers,” said Laeremans. According to Open Vld member Jean-Jacques De Gucht, there is an “urgent” discussion in Flanders about the organization of school holidays.

N-VA MP Kathleen Krekels wants to await the advice and evaluation on the French-speaking side. But she believes that consideration should also be given to a pure shortening of the summer holidays, without compensatory weeks in the crocus and autumn periods. “If we shorten the summer holidays, should this necessarily be followed by an extension of the spring and autumn holidays? Why not convert those two weeks into teaching time? Why does a spring break have to last two weeks? We only have 180 school days in a year,” says Krekels.