Several adjustments to the decree on current school rhythms are necessary. This is why the PS-MR-Ecolo majority in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation will present this Tuesday, to the Parliament’s Education Committee, a proposal for a decree containing additional provisions. This text, which is essentially technical, concerns in particular the dates of leave of certain categories of staff which had not been thought of and the calendar of appointments.
The Engaged intend to take the opportunity to put forward amendments which, for their part, relate directly to the dates of leave. “We have received many negative testimonials after the first two-week carnival holiday, explains MP Mathilde Vandorpe. We therefore propose to introduce at least one systematic common holiday week with Flanders and the German-speaking Community, in each holiday period, until all calendars are adjusted.”
New school rhythms, first assessment: “A week off was not enough!”
”Over, the holidays together”
The member relays three main difficulties. First, families whose members do not all evolve in the same community lose shared time. Cathy, a teacher for 22 years in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, testifies: “I made the choice to educate my children in Flanders. Until now I had the precious advantage of never having to worry about having them looked after during school holidays. The dream, you say? It turns into a nightmare. Vacations together are over, apart from the summer ones of course.
Then, the offer of internships does not cover the whole period (in particular if we are aiming for an internship in the community other than the one where the student is educated). “How can we manage language exchanges or enroll our children on a course in a second language if the school holidays are not aligned, asks Amélie, mother of 3 children schooled in Flanders and science teacher in FWB. The internship organizers in Brussels do not offer any internships during the Flemish school holidays and vice versa.
”They do nothing but watch TV”
Finally, for a whole less privileged audience, the two-week break sometimes seems like a bad thing. “With my colleagues from primary and kindergarten, we are not yet convinced that this is positive for all children, believes Sophie, a kindergarten teacher. For children in difficulty and who are not followed at home, the return is not easy… other than watching TV….”
Same echo on the side of Raphaël, teacher in 4, 5 and 6th secondary in a school with a low socio-economic index. “A general trend is that they got boredhe reports. They have mainly stayed at home, as they cannot afford to go on vacation or do expensive activities. Not having the means to leave several times a year, they preferred to have longer summer holidays because it was an opportunity for them to go to their families, whether in Turkey, Morocco, Africa, Poland, Bulgaria, … Second, going back to school is more complicated. The return after a 2-week break requires more revisions, getting back into the rhythm. This new calendar puts us in front of 4 periods during which we, teachers, must put our students back to work. I have never been so behind on my program as this year.”
And to add, concerning the organization of work, another remark valid for everyone: “Teachers can no longer do a certification evaluation the week of return, the evaluations are condensed over a shorter period of time. We had seen it after All Saints Day. The students had been overloaded with work during the second week. So much so that some of my classes begged me, this time, to schedule assessments the week of the start of the school year so as not to experience the same situation again.
”No holidays except Christmas will be aligned in 2026-2027”
If the organization has already been complicated during the last holiday, when a week was common with the other communities, “it will be the commotion at Easter”. The two French-speaking weeks of rest fall in effect at the beginning of May, unlike the others which remain in April.
“Besides, neither Carnival nor Easter will be aligned in 2023-2024 and 2025-2026she adds. Worse: this will be the case for all holidays except Christmas in 2026-2027.” Hence the importance of introducing a correction now. This would give, for the next 4 years, periods of 2 weeks off interspersed with 5 to 8 weeks of lessons, plus a period of 10 or 11 weeks between Easter and the summer holidays.