School dropout is on the rise, especially since covid. More than 23,000 students have been absent for more than 9 half-days, without justification, since the start of the school year. A figure almost twice as large as before the covid, with risks of dropping out for students. In Wavre, the Provincial Institute has set up a unit to anticipate this situation.
“I found myself the night before at midnight having to do my homework for the whole week”, says Luna. It was impossible for her to organize properly, and it showed in her results.
The young 16-year-old pupil therefore called on the help unit that exists in her school: “I couldn’t motivate myself to work and suddenly, the school-boost cell motivated me with schedules, tips for working more efficiently and it helped me because I saw that it was positive”.
The cell has existed for 10 years and has continued to grow. Students opt for group or individual workshops. In the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, between August and December 2022, 23,000 students presented nine half-days of unjustified absence, this is 90% more than in 2019, i.e. before covid. A period that amplified the problems. “There are always consequences, now we feel it. At the cell level, the difference is that we will favor more the individual. Before the covid, we had more groups, we could no longer afford to doing group sessions, we still do them. But now, the issues being more multifactorial, the partnerships brought about are different and therefore it’s more individual”explains Stéphanie Culot, teacher.
Léa is a former student of the school, she has experienced the coronavirus crisis for the past two years. The cell helped her not to give up: “I was also motivated by my teachers, there was an improvement in my points and all these tools served me well and they still serve me”, she recalls. Each year, 80 students from the Provincial Institute of Wavre use this unit.