Top executive of the education inspectorate lashes out at Minister Weyts: “Reports are not released or adjusted”
by atrocious_cleva82
Top executive of the education inspectorate lashes out at Minister Weyts: “Reports are not released or adjusted”
by atrocious_cleva82
3 comments
>The independence of the Flemish education inspectorate is under pressure. This is what CEO Lieven Viaene says, who is leaving his position today. According to him, **reports have been adjusted or not even published in recent years by Minister of Education Ben Weyts (N-VA).** The minister talks about “kicking the bucket”: “the bar had to be raised, including from the inspectorate”.
>Today is the last working day of the Inspector General of the Flemish Education Inspectorate, Lieven Viaene. He says goodbye with mixed feelings. “I am very disappointed about what I have seen happen in the last years of my career,” he says in De Ochtend on Radio 1. According to him, “the independent role that the inspectorate can still play” is under great pressure.
>**The Inspector General is clear: the inspection has been inhibited in recent years by the cabinet of Minister of Education Ben Weyts. “The inspection could no longer independently report what it saw. Some reports we made were not released. The communication from other reports was then taken over. As an inspection, we are no longer allowed to draw up and communicate press releases ourselves.”**
>In concrete terms, **this would include research into air quality in classrooms during the corona pandemic. The report, which was very critical of the situation, would only have been made available much later – and quietly. And that at the request of the cabinet,** says Viaene.
>Other reports – which go against the minister’s policy – were also reportedly suppressed. Press releases were sometimes largely rewritten.
The opportunity to put Ben Weyts on his place is something that man had been waiting for for a long time propably.
I’d like to highlight this response from Weyts
**Translated Text**
>Minister Weyts sees no problem at all. “As an inspectorate, you work under the political responsibility of the minister. If you want to be independent, you should start a shop or a barber shop.”
**Original Text**
>Minister Weyts ziet alleszins geen probleem. “Als inspectie werk je onder de politieke verantwoordelijkheid van de minister. Als je zelfstandig wil zijn, dan moet je een winkel of een kapperszaak beginnen.”