Dutch will become mandatory in all Walloonian schools (starting in 2027-2028)

31 comments
  1. Well sure, but already with it not mandatory I lacked a teacher for a few years. Can they solve that?

  2. I think the title has left out an existing exception

    I don’t think this counts for Eupen etc. where Dutch is the fourth language and also incompatible with taking the Maths option

  3. This is honestly great news. If we ever want to go back to being a functional country, the population needs to speak both Dutch and French (even if just at a basic level).

  4. How do they plan to enforce this? Are they going to close good schools who can’t or won’t offer Dutch classes? Looking at the state of their education system as it is, I don’t see how this is beneficial in any way to children who want to make something of their lives. They don’t need paternalistic governments imposing their values, they need the freedom to pursue skills they deem useful.

  5. As a non-Belgian living in Antwerp I’m surprised (and also unsurprised TBH) by the negativity with this news. If countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg have made this possible, why can’t Belgium? Most people I know here already learned French and seems they speak it more than Wallonians speak Dutch. You can’t so easily move to Flanders and get a job as a Belgian without speaking Dutch, just as you couldn’t if you moved to Wallonia with no French. ¿Porqué no los dos? And don’t say that it should be English. English is already sufficiently ubiquitous everywhere nowadays that most learn it pretty well just through media and social media.

  6. It would be more useful to study High Valyrian. Also much more phonetically pleasing than Dutch, which, in my humble opinion of an expat living in Belgium, sounds like you’re trying to expunge phlegm stuck in your sinuses.

  7. Flanders will have seceded by then. /s

    But those are great news. It’s about time. It’s terrifying to consider this will take YEARS to implement.

  8. Native Flemish here. I disagree with this. It’s a waste of time. Better we all go switch to a single language.

    Non-native against native always gives a power-play.

  9. Looking forward to Monday where I can tease my French born colleague that her daughters will learn Dutch as she lives near Arlon. She teased me that my Dutch language sounds ugly in her ears.

  10. It make sense to learn Dutch as I understand that Flanders is the economic stronger part of Belgium. Same in the Netherlands where we have to have a basic understanding of the German language as our neighbor is our biggest market.

  11. Good, my parents let me choose english as a second language in first secondary class and I think it was a bad choice.

  12. I still think it would be a lot more useful to pick English as the common language in the entire country and spend the mandatory time learning a third language more useful.

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