The chronic teacher shortage in Dutch-speaking schools is nothing new, and while bottom-down solutions have been introduced by Education Minister Ben Weyts, some schools are taking matters into their own hands.
Two Brussels primary schools in the Evere municipality have decided to experiment with a four-day school week from September to combat the impact of teacher shortages, with a view to retaining current staff and attract new teachers.
From the next academic year, pupils at the two primary schools in question, Papageno and De Weg-Wijzer, will no longer have classes on Wednesdays. The schools hope to attract more teachers living in Flanders, as this system will mean that staff will have to commute into the Belgian capital one less day a week.
Pupils can choose to either stay at home or come to school where a daycare service will be provided, as well as paid activities such as music lessons at low prices.
Win-win
On the other days, pupils will be asked to stay at school for an extra hour to make up for the four hours of lessons lost on Wednesdays (in Belgian schools, pupils are given half days on which the lesson periods are halved). The seventh lesson for pre-schoolers and primary school children will be spent doing creative and playful activities.
Lisa Janssens, headteacher of De Weg-Wijzer, confessed that both teachers and parents were initially sceptical about the scheme, especially about the quality of education. However, she argued that by adopting this system, the school can guarantee that a teacher will be in front of a classroom for every lesson.
"It provides a solution to the teacher shortage to provide quality education to students," she told Radio 1. Three other schools are also moving in this direction but are still waiting for approval from the inspectorate.
