‘Jan, in two sentences you showed on Friday what you think about Flemish primary education.’ This was stated in an open letter from school director Gunter Aerts, which was widely shared on social media. The Prime Minister described the last week before the Christmas holidays as ‘pedagogically unimportant, with some reading and I know-a lot-what’.
–
“Your statements showed that you have no respect for this sector and do not even recognize their professionalism,” writes Gunter Aerts in the open letter. ‘If you make such statements, you minimize the problem for worried parents, but at the same time you stab the entire education front in the back. Primary education is thus reduced to a glorified childcare facility. It betrays that he only wants to keep the schools open to keep parents at work and not because he cares about us. So say it like that.’
• Education imposes additional measures after consultation
Top man of Catholic education, Lieven Boeve, could only agree with the director. ‘The minister misunderstands the pedagogical qualities of primary education just at a time when staff are already on their gums, which is doubly unfortunate,’ says Boeve. ‘You can’t organize a reading week one week because it is important, and then say a week later that reading is not educationally important. The Christmas parties and celebrations are also important, because at school you learn not only to learn, but also to live.’
They are also bored with the statements at Community education. ‘In recent weeks we have been working on well-being and, for example, New Year’s letters are being written. That may seem like a fun fringe activity, but it’s just a very linguistic exercise. Reading aloud is also so valuable for the language skills of our children’, says spokesperson Nathalie Jennes.
• Parents can invoke temporary unemployment during an extra week of Christmas holidays
That cooling off week comes much too late, Koen De Backer of the VSOA education union reacts. ‘We think every week is equally pedagogical. We deeply regret that this is the motivation of the minister to invoke the cooling off week. You should expect the pause button to be pressed because it’s lit here.”
Minister Jan Jambon responded on Saturday through his spokesman. “It was never my intention to offend. But we do believe that it is better to schedule a cooling off week in the run-up to a holiday than in the middle of the school year.’
– .
