2023-09-14 14:34:00
This Monday, 250,000 students will pass through the doors of the 129 higher education establishments that currently make up the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB).
However, some of them have been walking around their campus for several days now, with the aim of preparing for the start of the school year.
This is particularly the case for Louise, 22, a communications student in Louvain-la-Neuve. Like others, she is worried regarding the new guidelines introduced by the reform of the landscape decree, which came into force during the previous school year.
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“More and more students are wondering regarding the financeability of their studies rather than regarding passing their exams. That’s a pressure we shouldn’t have to worry regarding right now.“, estimates the student.
For Emila Hoxaj, president of the Federation of French-speaking Students (FEF), the government is indeed fighting the wrong battle. “The government gives the impression of putting the blame on students for failure, even though it is structural. The central point should be to refinance higher education, and not to move towards a decree which accentuates the precariousness of students.”
Some answers
She explains : “The new landscape decree does not act on the causes of the failure. On the contrary: many students have to work to finance their studies and their tuition (Editor’s note: which may lead to longer studies). In addition, the underfunding of education has the effect that we find hundreds of students in certain auditoriums: they therefore do not have the opportunity to follow these courses correctly or to be able to ask all their questions..”
Especially since “the issue of student precariousness is not new. Already in 2019, we alerted the government to the fact that one in three students was in a precarious situation. However, today, prices in stores and rents for student accommodation are only increasing .”
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For the president of the FEF, “as long as the government does not provide concrete answers, precariousness will limit access to studies.” Emila Hoxaj gives examples of the establishment of a restrictive rent scale for apartments and the development of a public supply of student housing in order to better regulate the market.
But above all, it calls for “get out of this closed envelope logic“, and therefore to refinance higher education in general.
Some efforts
Since the start of the legislature, the FWB government has nevertheless taken its hand in the portfolio on several occasions. Particularly during the health crisis, where “38% of university students have seen their financial situation deteriorate“, recently alerted the Committee of French-speaking Rectors (CREF). However, in a memorandum sent to the various political parties, the latter underlined that “These efforts primarily address the symptoms and not the root causes.“
With this in mind, universities have also called, on the sidelines of this 2023-2024 academic year, for the refinancing of higher education under the next legislature.
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