School System

 

This division of responsibility for education policy is reflected in differences in the education system in the individual language communities.

Compulsory schooling in Belgium is generally from the age of  6 to 18. The basic structure of the education system is also the same throughout the country:

Type of school

Age

Remarks

Kindergarten

·      2½-6 years
(in the French community)

·      3-6 years
(in the Flemish and German-speaking communities)

 

Although registration for kindergarten is compulsory, attendance is not. Every child is guaranteed a place at a kindergarten, for which there is no charge. In practice between 90% and 95% of all children of preschool age attend kindergarten irrespective of which language community they belong to.

Elementary or primary school

6 to 12 years

 

Secondary school

12 to 18 years

There are three types of secondary school education:

·      General education (leading to school-leaving exam with university entrance entitlement)

·      Technical education (leading to school-leaving exam with university entrance entitlement and vocational qualifications)

·      Vocational education (vocational qualifications)

 

In all three language communities schools are maintained by three different bodies:

  • An official and neutral education system that is directly dependent on the community’s various ministries.
  • An official, subsidised education system maintained by the provinces or municipalities.
  • An independent (denominational or non-denominational) subsidised education system maintained by bodies 95% of which are members of the Catholic education federation.

 

Despite the fact that for over 30 years responsibility for school education has lain with the regional governments of the three language communities (i.e. there has been a federal education policy largely comparable to the system in Germany and Switzerland) differences in the education systems, timetables and the content of curricula have so far remained slight.

French-speaking community

Since 1999 timetables and curricula for the years of compulsory education from age 6 to age 14 have no longer been drawn up for each individual school year; instead they cover a number of years, forming an integrated educational level. The final year of kindergarten was incorporated into the first school level, since nearly all children of that age attend kindergarten, although this is not compulsory.

  • 1st level: ages 5-8 (final kindergarten year plus the 1st and 2nd years of elementary school)
  • 2nd level: ages 8-12 (3rd to 6th year of elementary school)
  • 3rd level: ages 12-14 (1st and 2nd year of secondary school)

Basic competences were worked out for each of the levels, which also included music.

 

© 2012 EAS - European Association for Music in Schools