Proposition 54K0051

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 29 juin 1983 concernant l'obligation scolaire afin d'instaurer l'obligation scolaire à partir de l'âge de cinq ans.

General information ¶

Author

LE Catherine Fonck

Submission date

July 9, 2014

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

teaching compulsory education

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA MR PVDA | PTB PP VB

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Discussion ¶

March 14, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteur is Mrs Dierick. I suppose that it refers to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, our party and others had submitted this amendment proposal, which aims to lower the age of commencement of compulsory school to five years, for a number of years. Thanks to the vote that will take place just now, this will be a reality for school return, on September 1, 2020. It was important, of course, that schools could organize themselves so that everything would take place in optimal conditions.

This progress is ⁇ important. Regular attendance from an early age is the best way to develop children’s sociability, enable them to integrate school codes, and will facilitate their integration. It is an essential tool for development, more specifically for children who do not speak French or Dutch at home, or who are more vulnerable socio-economically.

Furthermore, studies have shown that children who do not attend kindergarten are more likely to experience a more complex school path later. Reducing the age of compulsory schooling to five years is a tool for the promotion and success of our children. This is a great advance for us. After all these years without having succeeded at parliamentary level, this is a sign that it is worth, dear colleagues, to persist and continue to mobilise.

We have received positive opinions from various Communities and governments, but also from Ministers of Education. This resulted in this progress in the Commission. We end the legislature with a vote in the plenary and I look forward to it. We will support our text.

Mr. Speaker, as Ms. Fonck just said, the case is old. In fact, I found in my cartons the first bill that the group PS/sp.a had submitted. It was in February 2004. Already at that time, studies demonstrated the importance of early and regular schooling to combat the reproduction of social inequalities and to promote the integration of the child into the relevant student group.

In the meantime, many studies have continued to draw the same conclusion. Some children, especially those from precarious backgrounds who do not speak either of the two national languages, integrate the school later and do not attend it on a regular basis, which therefore does not allow to acquire the codes of the school system and sufficient knowledge of the language.

In 2015, we submitted another bill to be more ambitious in view of the findings, namely the compulsory schooling from the age of three. This resolution was unanimously adopted by our colleagues senators in February 2016. They pointed out that it is important that compulsory schooling begins at the age of three. This is also the position of the government of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation which is in favor of lowering the school obligation at the age of three.

Of course, we will look forward to this first step that will be applied from the school return 2020-2021. But what lost time! I will regret that the Flemish Community took fifteen years to give this Parliament an opinion on compulsory schooling. That’s a lot, fifteen years. We received it in extremis on February 12 last year. What a waste! Waiting for fifteen years to try to ⁇ a better integration of students but also to fight school inequality is huge!

We remain in favour of compulsory schooling from the age of three, but we will obviously support the small step forward of compulsory schooling from the age of five. Therefore, we will vote with enthusiasm for this bill.

Sometimes it takes many years to ⁇ a result. It took 15 years for this Parliament to vote on the reduction of the school obligation from six to five years. Since 1988, teaching has become a competence within the Communities. However, fixing the beginning and end of the school obligation is a federal competence.

In recent years, many texts have been filed with a variant: the beginning of the school obligation is three or five years old. I remember having submitted a text on this subject with colleague Maingain many years ago. My group had, from that time, chosen the option of starting the compulsory schooling at five years. Young people would be subject to the obligation for thirteen years versus twelve currently.

The State Council considers that the imposition of the compulsory schooling at five years does not appear to be considered a disproportionate measure given the fact that the vast majority of children of this age are already attending kindergarten – according to the figures, approaching 98%.

We have long been waiting for the opinions of the communities. They have recently arrived and are positive, on the express condition that the law comes into force only for the 2020-2021 academic year. This condition was accepted in the parliamentary debate.

Why should the obligatory schooling be increased to five years? Simply because attending kindergarten is a success factor for primary education. An OECD study has shown some correlations between the number of years spent in preschool education and subsequent school outcomes. We are part of a scheme that ensures equal opportunities for all children. Following this logic, it is thus a year earlier that teachers will be able to determine which children suffer from a delay and will be able to ensure appropriate accompaniment in order to offer each child the best chances of success.

For these reasons, we will vote in favour of this proposal.

After many years, a decision has finally been made in the current bill. According to the information provided to me by colleagues with a lot more years on the counter in the hemisphere, this bill has been around for almost fifteen years. With sp.a, we have always followed this closely, because we cannot deny that in the last fifteen years a lot has changed and evolved. The needs and concerns are no longer the same and of course our society has changed too. Therefore, we are convinced that we must dare to take a step further. The French have already understood this.

My colleagues, we cannot be left behind. For this reason, we will re-submit the amendment we submitted at the committee meeting at this plenary session. We would like to go a step further with our amendment, as we propose to fix the compulsory school age from five years to three years. For this we have the following reasons.

Today, on average, 5 % of children between three and five years of age in Belgium are not enrolled in preschool education. In absolute figures we are talking about and among the fifteen thousand children, which corresponds to the number of inhabitants of many municipalities in Belgium. I can say that this is not a low number.

We also want to prevent those fifteen thousand children from experiencing language and learning lags even before they enter the first school year. For information, the number of young people who leave secondary education without a diploma is dramatically high. Let us not forget that today’s kindergartens are tomorrow’s parents. Child poverty has only increased in our country in recent years. In Belgium, on average, 15% of children are born in poverty. For us, education plays a crucial role in the fight against child poverty. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to facilitate access to education as early as possible.

It is our responsibility to be a good example in this regard, despite the fact that the opinions about our proposal were previously negative. Exceptional circumstances, where I refer to the 15% child poverty rate, require exceptional solutions. This is what we now want to ⁇ with our amendment: we create a lever in the fight against child poverty to prevent the number of children born in poverty from increasing further.

If the minimum age for compulsory schooling is set at 6 years, 95 to 99 percent of our children already attend maternal school at the age of 5. Positive figures when it comes to the positive impacts of schooling for children before compulsory primary school, as well as cognitive, linguistic, social and social levels.

Still, children who are not enrolled in school before the age of 6 and those, many more, who, although enrolled, do not attend school regularly, are from ⁇ disadvantaged social backgrounds. Rather than helping them to get on, the current system actually strengthens inequalities between them and other children.

These figures should be put in parallel with a tendency to delay the entry age to kindergarten beyond 3 years. A study on inequality in access to kindergarten shows that children who free up their place at the age of two and a half occupy it longer because they would rarely be allowed to enter kindergarten. Families are therefore more likely to bear the cost of kindergartens while school is free.

This is why, after the 2014 legislative elections, my group re-presented its bill aiming to lower the age of compulsory schooling from 6 to 3 years. In particular, we followed a resolution of the Higher Health Council recommending that parents enroll their children from the age of two and a half. We were the first party to file a text on this subject in this legislature, but also the only one to propose the lowering of the age of compulsory schooling to 3 years. So it is with joy that we have seen other parties submit texts aimed at the same goal, although I regret the little ambition of the texts that consider lowering it only to 5 years. A gradual decrease from year to year to 3 years was quite possible.

Many of us recognize the positive effects of early schooling. Early childhood is a crucial time for the acquisition of language and skills necessary for everyday life such as cooperation, autonomy, creativity, and problem solving. A French national survey has also concluded that each year spent in preschool reduces the likelihood of doubling of the first year of primary school, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

As soon as the children are educated, they can be taken care of if necessary in case of language and speech disorders, spatial-temporal orientation and psychomotor disorders.

The school here plays its full role of prevention, counseling and supporting parents, while giving the child the maximum chance to successfully approach the primary cycle. It is obvious that the earlier the attention capabilities are mobilized, the more facilitated the acquisitions of primary school students are.

This measure will also accelerate the integration of immigration-based young children, as early education enables them to master the basics, in particular the language of education, which is an essential step for a successful and emancipatory school and professional journey.

Second, socializing and stimulating children from an early age through the organization of foster services and school structures has positive effects. Early childhood education represents a real public good and brings benefits in terms of health, cognitive, social and emotional development that also fosters relationship with others and social cohesion.

Thirdly, the budgetary impact of such a measure is quite relativising. As the State Council points out, the proposed measure should not have an unreasonable impact on the Communities responsible for organizing and ensuring the free of charge of education. Indeed, a very large proportion of the children concerned, even in the age group of 3 to 4 years, are already enrolled in school and this is free of charge. For this reason, France has decided to lower the age of compulsory schooling from 6 to 3 years from the start of school in 2019.

Finally, I would add that investments made in education will always benefit society in terms of health and economy. Education is the key to many social problems.

Therefore, my group will obviously support the reduction of the age of compulsory schooling to 5 years, while regretting that a consensus could not be found on an age that would have accentuated the positive effects of early schooling, namely 3 years. It is regrettable that the path taken by France was not taken by Belgium. I dare hope that this reduction to five years is only a step in a process that aims, in the long run, to make the three years of maternal education compulsory.

I also draw the attention of the Communities to the need to accompany this reduction of the age of compulsory schooling with a true policy of encouragement so that the attendance of schools for the 3-4 years is clearly revised upwards.

This is, for the rest, the subject of the draft resolution submitted by DéFI to the Parliament of the French Community in October 2014. In this text, in fact, we asked the Government of this entity to encourage, by all means it deems necessary, the regular attendance of maternal education from the age of two and a half, but also to expressly authorize children to return to school at any time of the year, in order to make effective the school obligation when the student has reached the age of three.

It is therefore important to vote on this text. All levels of power will work together on a plan to maximize the school attendance of the youngest.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, I believe that the bill has been sufficiently outlined by the applicant. The proposal, which will come into force from the school year 2020-2021, reinforces the reduction of compulsory schooling from six years to five years.

Even though we are sympathetic to the principle, we still had some concerns about the effects. First, given that Article 24 of the Constitution stipulates that life-oriented education must be given in the case of compulsory education, the Flemish Government has in its opinion made the explicit condition that the reduction of the age of compulsory learning should not result in life-oriented education being given in preschool education.

The entry into force, from 2020-2021, effectively takes this into account. On the one hand, this will enable the Communities to prepare for the entry into force and to take the necessary measures in order to ensure adequate adaptation for the five-year-old. On the other hand, it gives us the opportunity in the coming years to adjust the Constitution on that point, so that the opinion of the Flemish Community can be respected.

If we do not, the arrangement – Flemish Minister of Education Crevits has given a number of figures about it – would mean 20 million euros in additional costs in Flanders. That amount would be very different for the French Community, given the fact that the participation of kindergartens in Flanders today is a little higher than in the French Community.

This too needs to be paid some attention.

Of course, there are also other costs related, for example for the administration. The estimates in this regard are around 15 million euros.

That must not prevent us from implementing the proposal, nor does it mean the cost we will oppose. We have long been in favor of increasing preschool participation in education. For this purpose, the Flemish government has already taken very specific measures. A lot of steps have already been taken in this area. In Flanders, the preschool participation rate for five-year-olds is 99%.

We must also bear in mind that a reduction in the age of compulsory schooling does not automatically mean that the concerned kindergartens also have to go to school. There is still a difference between compulsory school and compulsory school. Therefore, it is necessary to follow up in the coming years or increase the share of home education.

The scheme meets the demand of the Communities. I think it is good to let them decide a number of things in that area. They must ultimately organize education, since they are primarily responsible for it, while only the aspect of compulsory learning still floats here. As long as we are competent in this House, we must take our responsibility for it and make decisions for the Communities. It would, of course, be much more logical if the compulsory schooling would eventually come to the Communities. In this way, they can organize it in the way they themselves wish. Could this lead to shorter transition times in this area?

In its opinion, the State Council has very specifically recalled that we could not simply take the measure in question without involving the Communities. I think that is absolutely important.

Colleagues, concluding, we will definitely vote for the proposal, because it is and remains an opportunity to support preschool participation in education. Knowledge of Dutch in Flanders is of great importance.

Those who do not speak Dutch sufficiently at home, often struggle with learning lag. By teaching it already in kindergarten, one can avoid it. In fact, we often see that such a learning retardation leads to a whole school career, and we absolutely want to avoid that.

Our group will definitely approve the proposal, but within the framework I have outlined. We therefore expect that in the coming time more steps can be taken so that the framework is correct and we can avoid the costs of the compulsory life-visionary education. During the debates, I had the impression that no one was waiting in the Chamber and that it must absolutely be about kindergarten participation and much less about the life-visual subjects.

Dear colleagues, my group will support this text with enthusiasm. My speech will be short in view of the years that this work of consultation of the Communities has taken on a matter that, since 1988, has been essentially communitarianized. Some would like to regionalize it, but for now it depends on the communities.

Communities already had the possibility to impose an obligation of registration in the school. This is an obligation of attendance. The number given varied from one colleague to another, which proves that statistics is not a science since we sometimes talk about 92, 93 or 98%. Is this everyday attendance? I think that is an average. I think the attendance is already exceptionally strong in both Communities, which makes it impossible for now to touch the Funding Act of 1989. We talked about the 1988 law. I take advantage of the passage to pay tribute to Philippe Moureaux because he was one of the actors of that period. Per ⁇ this is the way to make links in parliamentary debates.

As for the compulsory schooling at five years, I think the consequences are manageable for the Communities. I listened almost religiously. by Wollants. Certainly Mr. Reynders may be Pope, Mr. De Wever can be God and M. Wollants is his spokesman, but the N-VA wants to regionalize education. On the day we will make the debate on the compulsory schooling at three years, which may have its relevance, we should not forget the funding law because there, the consequences for Communities, whatever they are and whatever they want to do of their destiny, will be much greater in terms of operating costs.

by Mr. Wollants cited figures of the order of twenty million for the Flemish Community regarding the five-year obligation. He did not give us the figures of the three-year obligation. I just draw your attention to this point. If future members of this House want to go further in the school obligation, they will not have to forget the Funding Act of 1989 because there, the material consequences would be very important for the Communities.

Finish on the positive aspect. Although it has taken years, I think it is an important step for communities and especially for students and for the fight against inequalities. It is known that they are already formed from five years. The more we move towards integration from the early childhood to the language of learning, the better we will fight these inequalities.

These are positive things that will make us save money in the future. School failure is costly for individuals, but also for communities.