In light of the rising cost of school equipment, Mathieu Michel, the Federal State Secretary for Digitisation, has called for a 6% VAT reduction on IT equipment purchased by schools.
According to a recent Family League report, the cost of school supplies is becoming prohibitively expensive for children and their families.
So much so that the French-language charity 'Restos du Cœur' has launched an online donation platform to assist them in purchasing school supplies for those in need.
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According to the League's research, computers are one of the most expensive school supplies. As a result, it is difficult for a parent to send their child to school without providing them with the same equipment as their peers.
Furthermore, Belgium recently dropped to 16th place in the most recent European digitisation ranking, and Michel, aware of the need to improve this as early as at school age, has requested that the cost of digitisation not be borne solely by parents.
The Liberal minister has thus proposed lowering the VAT on the purchase of pedagogical IT material by schools from 10% to 6%, which would apply to both hardware and software.
