Pressure from the sale of gadgets in our schools: our children do not have to make up for the shortcomings of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation

The practice has been repeated for several decades in almost all of the country’s schools: as fancy fairs, green or snow classes approach, children and parents are called upon by schools to sometimes sell pens which will only work for two weeks, sometimes tasteless waffles and biscuits, sometimes even raffle tickets allowing you to win prizes which, most of the time, will end up in a brol drawer or at the back of a cupboard.

Very often, tired of being slammed in the face by uncomprehending neighbors or who have to sell their school gadgets themselves, it is often the parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts who end up untying the purse strings. , although sometimes very precarious, to avoid their children being reprimanded and punished by schools that are sometimes very (too?) insistent.

Financial pressure from schools on our children: “children must stay away from money exchanges”

Should we blame them? Not necessarily. If the approach is generalized, teachers and school administrators often maintain this habit to compensate for funding shortfalls, on the French-speaking side, of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.

These practices are often adopted to improve the daily lives of students and teachers and meet expenses not covered by the FWB. Practices which, unfortunately, are likely to be repeated in the coming years, to make it possible to absorb as much as possible the financial deficit of schools whose cash flow has been weighed down by the energy crisis. And which might be avoided if the FWB funded its schools properly.