The educational consultancy on saving 100 million euros will soon be completed

In the September statement of Prime Minister Jean Gambon (N-VA), it became clear that education should provide €100 million. How, was still a question mark. So Education Minister Ben Waits called on university organizations and unions Thursday morning to discuss the matter. The meeting ended an hour later.

“Ben Waits asked if we had any ideas, but no one responded,” says Quinn Pellereau, CEO of Community Education (GO!). “There are some Do not go formulated. It is clear that saving is very difficult. ”

It is unreasonable for trade unions to be affected by the new collective labor agreement that has just been approved. In this, 188 million euros are allocated annually to make teachers’ jobs more attractive, for example by partially relieving them of supervision during play times or during the afternoon. “Education is not worth savings, but investments to make the teaching profession attractive and to improve the quality of education,” unions emphasized in a joint press release after the consultation.

daily operation

Catholic teaching made it clear that the “regular funding” of education should not be affected. Concretely, this relates to the money that goes to building schools and the wages and operating resources schools receive for heating and electricity, among other things.

“We particularly wanted to know why, after years of additional initiatives – such as Digisprong, to which huge sums have been allocated – education is now suddenly receiving a €100 million bill,” says Levin Boeuf, Director General of Catholic Education. “We have sent a clear message that it is up to the minister to make savings that do not disrupt the daily work of the schools.”

The question is where to make the savings. Catholic Catechism indicates between the lines that Weyts should only look at the private projects he has created in recent times. The university organization doesn’t want to name concrete examples itself, but a lot of money has gone to Digisprong to give all students a laptop, and a collective labor agreement, for example, the project to let people walk with principals for a fee to learn a trade.

Weyts will now work on a proposal, but the question is whether it will pass the education field over again or go directly to government. In order to get the approved budget in time, he must land before the fall holidays. A spokesman for Wits declined to comment. It sounds like “we will communicate when everything is in place”.