The Secretary General of the European Schools has recently started a discussion on the future of the European schools. To kick off the debate, a first draft of a paper on “Reflections on the future structure of the Brussels European Schools” (Ref.: 2022-05-D-en_1)” was presented and discussed at the meeting of the Enlarged group of the Steering Committee Brussels on 31 May 2022.

The reflection paper proposes two models for the future Brussels European schools. Model A focus on non-fundamental changes to the traditional model that builds on the current structure of “several language sections per school” that stretches from nursery to BAC year. Model B presents a ‘campus’ approach, where the existing sites of Brussels schools are transformed to campuses that host children of certain grades (primary – middle school- upper secondary school).

The idea behind both model A and model B is to tackle overcrowding that the Brussels European Schools are facing for decades and that are the result of many years of inaction by the host EU member-state: Belgium.

Arguably, the Secretary General is facing a very difficult task: overcrowding in the Brussels schools is not an easily solvable problem given that the current infrastructural opportunities – notably the temporary primary school site in Evere that still has free capacity – is not fit to host secondary pupils, where the overcrowding in all four Brussels schools is more present and felt.

With model A, the Secretary General proposes many changes to several language sections of the four Brussels schools. From the rather unclear draft paper, several language sections should apparently phase out of existing schools / sites for the benefit of other schools sites. Despite the lack of clarity in the document, the phasing out should start ideally in the school year 2023/24 and the biggest changes would be:

• The phasing out of the DE section from EEB1 (Uccle and Berkendael)
• The phasing out of the IT section from EEB2 (Woluwe and Evere)
• The phasing out of the DE, EN, FI, LT, NL, PT and SV sections from EEB2 Woluwe site to the Evere site.
• The EN and NL sections in EEB3 (phasing out)
• The IT section in EEB4 (phasing out)

Phasing out leads to an eventual closure of a section or a closure of a primary cycle on a particular school site. This will negatively affect hundreds of families of EU staff that currently have children in a given school and have younger siblings that will enter the European school system after the plan is implemented. At this point it seems that the younger siblings could be sent to a different school/site than that of their older siblings.

To ‘solve’ this problem, the Secretary General states that it is essential to respect the place of enrolment of children, as this is of utmost importance to the pupils and their families.

However, in the Reflection document, a decisive distinction is made between “schools” and “sites”, suggesting that this fundamental rule of respect for place of enrolment only applies the “schools” and not “sites”. Consequently, in EEB2 the younger siblings of currently enrolled children in DE, EN, FI, LT, NL, PT and SV sections in Woluwe might be forced to start schooling on a different site 5 kilometres away from the site their siblings are attending.

Quite clearly, what matters for the children and parents is the geographical location, and not the administrative denomination or organization of the school. It goes without saying that the transfer of younger siblings to another distant geographical location, is highly disruptive of the lives of the children and their families alike.

Furthermore, a very similar version of option A, has already been rejected by the Board of Governors and by Commissioner Hahn less than two years ago. Revisiting it so soon instils lots of uncertainty and stress in the parents, who start believing they are being played and cannot make any long term planning for their family life.

As for Model B, the so-called campus model, is a tested system found in many member states’ and other countries around the world. However, it is normally implemented at a human scale (e.g., within a neighbourhood or a small town or city). Rolling out such a model over a large metropolis, as Brussels is, where traffic is already a very big problem, will yield nothing short of a disaster with possible separation of siblings across three sites and very negative consequences to the quality of life of the pupils and their families.

To conclude, there is clearly a complex problem that needs solving, but the two proposed solutions are in our opinion not viable and other solutions, where the impact on the pupils and their families is minimal, should be sought. Perhaps a solution where the Belgian state finally fulfils its long ignored obligations towards the European Schools should be the way to go.