The Haute École Charlemagne and Haute École de la Ville de Liège have agreed to merge, Minister of Education for the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB) Frédéric Daerden, alongside other local education officials, announced at a press conference on Monday, La Libre reports.
The new merger will begin for the 2024-2025 academic year, with plans to share a new campus. “Two schools doing the same thing and which are separated by barely 1.5 kilometres, no longer makes sense,” the minister said.
The decision, officials say, is to make the future Haute École run more efficiently and to maintain the two higher education institutes’ competitiveness in the education sector.
The financial situation at the Haute École de la Ville de Liège has worried officials for some time. Jean-Pierre Hupkens, Liège alderman for Education, has made no secret of this fact. The education institute has accrued debts of €3.5 million. Despite this, he insisted that the decision to merge the institutions was not purely financial. Amongst the staff of both schools, there is little opposition to the proposal.
“Clearly the two universities are complementary and the objective is to achieve greater dynamics here. This merger must indeed benefit the dynamics of Liège in a broad sense,” explained Daerden.
At the two institutions, comprising seven buildings in Liège and attended by 5,000 pupils, almost half the courses are orientated towards training in the educational sector. Many students receive training to become kindergarten, primary and secondary teachers. This is the only overlap, and students of the new joint higher education institute will be sent between the new faculties according to their needs.
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“This Haute École will have an almost complete offer while effectively putting an end to sterile and useless competition,” said Julien Nicaise, general administrator of the Wallonia-Brussels Education network. The education institute will have a partnership with Liège University, and students wishing to become future teachers will have to first attend one of the Hautes Écoles.
A new large campus is planned following the merger, which education officials call a “hypercentre.” The plans for this have not been fully announced. Existing buildings used by the universities will remain, but new facilities may be built elsewhere. The plan will also revitalise the dilapidated buildings of the Haute École de la Ville de Liège using funds from the FWB.
