Ecoles Europennes de Bruxelles: tout va trs bien

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Ecoles Europennes de Bruxelles: tout va trs bien

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• Arts

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• Publié par: okemepar
• Nombre de lectures: 51
• Langue: Français

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European Schools: what

we want for our children

in Brussels

Texte français ci-dessous

The state of the European schools in Brussels is far from satisfactory. The considerable

delay in building the new school in Laeken and the inappropriateness of the temporary

site in Berkendael, in a context marred by overcrowding, add to the crisis concerning

the way our European schools are run. More and more parents are opting out of the

system or deciding not to enrol their children even though the European schools

provide, for most of the languages spoken in the 27 Member States, the only

possibility for families to give their children an education in their own language.

Regarding infrastructure, the situation is worrying and gets worse year on year: the

Laeken school should have been ready for 2007/2008, but we are now being told to

wait until 2012/2013 – another four years, or nearly as long as our children are in

primary school. General overcrowding in the 4 schools is giving rise to rigid

timetables and overloaded working days (sometimes 9 hours per day in primary

schools at least twice a week), a situation which is only made worse by the fact that the

majority of parents also have to agree to an excessive journey time for their children to

get to school. The Berkendael annex is unsuitable as it is too small to house everybody

and, moreover, situated far from the Laeken school of which it forms the annex:

currently, parents of new pupils, regardless of where they live, have to enrol their child

in the Laeken school only to see him shunted over to the other side of town just a few

years later. Only a few are fortunate enough to pick the school of their choice if they

take part in the ‘lottery’ set up by the institutions: what a shining example of public

administration, when transparent and fair admission conditions are replaced by pure

chance!

Clearly, things can’t go on like this. What’s more, very often, parents don’t feel

supported by the schools or the institutions. So it’s not surprising that more and more

families are choosing not to send their children to the European schools! Because of

this, the number of children actually enrolled in the schools is climbing more slowly

than foreseen, handing the Belgian authorities a pretext to justify, after the fact, the

reason why they are behind in their building work. The Commission must provide the

exact number of families who are forced to abandon the European education system.

Enough is enough!

The idea behind the European schools was to create a vital

tool for the running of our institutions and provide added value for Europe. This

seems a distant memory today. It is not just the children and parents who are

bearing the brunt of this – it also paints a shoddy picture of our institutions.

We

must all come together to demand: