> The Minister of Education of the *Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles*, Caroline Désir, wants the learning of Dutch, or German, to be imposed in Wallonia as in Brussels from the third year of primary school, from the start of the 2027-2028 school year, according to a note from the minister which La Libre Belgique has been able to read.
> Currently, in Brussels, the learning of the first modern language begins in the third year of primary school and is required to be Dutch. This is also the case in the Walloon municipalities on the language border (Comines-Warneton, Mouscron, Flobecq and Enghien). Elsewhere in Wallonia, on the other hand, this course appears in fifth grade and focuses on Dutch, English or German, at the choice of schools and students.
> In 2019-2020, 64% of sixth-grade students in Wallonia took a Dutch course and only 47% did so in the first year of high school. It also appears that 28% of Walloon students enrolled in sixth year of high school in the 2020-2021 school year had never had a single hour of Dutch during their education.
Lol. 2027. In at least two governments.
At the chance of being a Debbie Downer: Flanders already has a shortage of Dutch & French teachers. How much money do they want to throw at this to actually have competent bilingual speakers do the teaching? If the answer is not “a shit ton”, then this is just a pipe dream.
Dutch or German
Please don’t. today we have it so easy as flemish on the labour market because half of the country can’t speak both of the country’s official languages. Don’t change that!
/s
The problem is not the Wallonians, it’s people in Bruxelles who refuse to speak Dutch.
Well, as much as i lke my fellow contrymen, dutch doesn’t get you far enough in this world to be useful.
And i don’t blame them for learning English instead of french either.
It makes more sense for all of us to learn English or Spanish.
Personally I think that French speaking education should make it mandatory to learn at least 2 of these 3 languages: NL, DE, EN.
For example, if you live in Liege province right next to the border with Germany there’s no point in favouring Dutch over German and English.
2027? Pas trop vite hein!
Just teach English as second language to all.
Better late than never i guess
Most dutch speakers complaining about this barely speak french despite learning it in school for 10 years but okay, not a bad idea.
Screw dutch. Teach english.
The value of the dutch language is just low. ( and im dutch)
Hard no, and I’m Flemish. Nothing makes people resist learning a language more than being forced to learn it.
En fait, si t’habites dans la cambrousse arlonaise, on va t’imposer une langue qui te sera pas forcément utile? Ok
C’est bien pour l’unification de Belgique.
Mais je pense il est une promesse fausse.
Je suis un Flamande excusez moi pour ma Français.
Corrigez mes faux.
As a foreigner (French), do the Flemish speak French fluently and is French as mandatory there as Caroline Désir wants Dutch to be in Wallonie? Most Belgians I’ve met couldn’t (nor wanted) to speak the other language. In Switzerland however, most germanophones spoke great French, whereas most francophones didn’t speak much German
18 comments
It’s about time!
English (DeepL):
> The Minister of Education of the *Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles*, Caroline Désir, wants the learning of Dutch, or German, to be imposed in Wallonia as in Brussels from the third year of primary school, from the start of the 2027-2028 school year, according to a note from the minister which La Libre Belgique has been able to read.
> Currently, in Brussels, the learning of the first modern language begins in the third year of primary school and is required to be Dutch. This is also the case in the Walloon municipalities on the language border (Comines-Warneton, Mouscron, Flobecq and Enghien). Elsewhere in Wallonia, on the other hand, this course appears in fifth grade and focuses on Dutch, English or German, at the choice of schools and students.
> In 2019-2020, 64% of sixth-grade students in Wallonia took a Dutch course and only 47% did so in the first year of high school. It also appears that 28% of Walloon students enrolled in sixth year of high school in the 2020-2021 school year had never had a single hour of Dutch during their education.
Lol. 2027. In at least two governments.
At the chance of being a Debbie Downer: Flanders already has a shortage of Dutch & French teachers. How much money do they want to throw at this to actually have competent bilingual speakers do the teaching? If the answer is not “a shit ton”, then this is just a pipe dream.
Dutch or German
Please don’t. today we have it so easy as flemish on the labour market because half of the country can’t speak both of the country’s official languages. Don’t change that!
/s
The problem is not the Wallonians, it’s people in Bruxelles who refuse to speak Dutch.
Well, as much as i lke my fellow contrymen, dutch doesn’t get you far enough in this world to be useful.
And i don’t blame them for learning English instead of french either.
It makes more sense for all of us to learn English or Spanish.
Personally I think that French speaking education should make it mandatory to learn at least 2 of these 3 languages: NL, DE, EN.
For example, if you live in Liege province right next to the border with Germany there’s no point in favouring Dutch over German and English.
2027? Pas trop vite hein!
Just teach English as second language to all.
Better late than never i guess
Most dutch speakers complaining about this barely speak french despite learning it in school for 10 years but okay, not a bad idea.
Screw dutch. Teach english.
The value of the dutch language is just low. ( and im dutch)
Hard no, and I’m Flemish. Nothing makes people resist learning a language more than being forced to learn it.
En fait, si t’habites dans la cambrousse arlonaise, on va t’imposer une langue qui te sera pas forcément utile? Ok
C’est bien pour l’unification de Belgique.
Mais je pense il est une promesse fausse.
Je suis un Flamande excusez moi pour ma Français.
Corrigez mes faux.
As a foreigner (French), do the Flemish speak French fluently and is French as mandatory there as Caroline Désir wants Dutch to be in Wallonie? Most Belgians I’ve met couldn’t (nor wanted) to speak the other language. In Switzerland however, most germanophones spoke great French, whereas most francophones didn’t speak much German