Education in Belgium is, for the most part on par with the rest of Western Europe, although due to language issues and the divisions they cause in Belgian schools, there is a wide degree of variance among particular language communities in the whole scope of education in Belgium. The relegation of educational oversight that has been granted to distinct language communities in Belgium has influenced the appearance of a few significant disparities in the levels of education in Belgium in specific language groups.
Overall, according to several recent reports seeking to offer an astute assessment of the quality of education in Belgium and the general performance of Belgian schools outside of the context of language-specific communities is quite good and admired for its stringency and level of success with older students going on to higher levels of education, however, there is a growing disparity between the quality of education in Belgium between the Flemish versus the French speaking schools, with the Flemish schools in Belgium far surpassing French schools.
Belgium is divided in terms of the languages spoken and each of these language groups help to determine the standard for each community of language-speakers and their educational goals and curriculum. Furthermore, because of the divisions caused by language, education in Belgium varies quite widely when compared to other places in the West that are less driven by the separatism caused by a language barrier in schools. These matters are further complicated by the fact that ever since 1988 when the government decided to allow all Belgian schools to regulate themselves based on distinct language communities the disparities between these subsets of education in Belgium are growing more pronounced.
One of the more frequently cited aspects of this division among the language communities in the system of education in Belgium is that the French speaking schools decided to put less emphasis on the core subjects. As a result, math and science scores plummeted while the Flemish schools, with their broader inclusion of core subjects and a more diverse curriculum in general, took over not only in terms of the mathematics and science aspect, but more generally.
Another distinct feature of education in Belgium in terms of these disparities between the quality of education received in the language community schools is that there is a lack of measurement or standards to ensure that all students are placed in the best possible schools. In short, some students are being put into high performing schools while others in the French speaking community are being relegated to worse schools. This ability for the language communities to dictate which students go to which schools is not only a source of conflict in Belgian schools, but is a contributing factor in the disparity between the levels and quality of education in Belgium.
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