Talk:Education in Belgium

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[edit] Request for Rewriting

The sections Course overview, Expert's evaluation of the school system, Educative system as a block on creativity and entrepreneur-ship, and Some other flaws in the design need to be rewritten, to cite sources, or to be deleted from this article entirely.

Course overview does not (in my opinion) qualify in its present condition as a section; it is only one sentence, which isn't even complete (notice the ellipses.) Also, its tone does not fit that of an encyclopedia entry. I may change it following this post, but I don't see much point in it because no real information is provided in the section.

Expert's evaluation of the school system does not cite sources for the evaluation used to make assertions put forth in the section. It again lacks an encyclopedic tone; the schools are compared only to Germany without a specific reason (which shows some partisanship) and asks a question near the end. This section needs a rewrite with sources if it is to remain in this article.

The final two sections have the same issues regarding syntax, tone, and insufficient sources. Educative System as a block... quotes Ferre Laevers without a link to where it was found, there are spelling errors throughout, and the phrase "allot (sic) information to chew" is, again, informal in nature, as is the entire final section.

Not being from Belgium, or even from Europe, I went to this article wanting to find information on the education system, so I may not be the most well qualified to rewrite this article, except for structural errors (which I will leave intact until other users see the issues themselves.) If anyone could help to improve these sections, it would be appreciated. If no sources can be found to maintain a neutral POV, I move that the offending sections are removed enitrely. --Freakazette 19:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this needs to be rewritten. Especially as their is a clear bias, as is demonstrated by the following sentence "All the stuff students must learn should be used to explain the reality, not the other way around. In Belgium this is most definetly not the case.".

Agreed, last section especially is unnecessary and does not follow neutrality regulations. Also seems poorly translated (grammar and spelling errors). Anyone who knows about the Belgium school system or can spend some time on valid research should get involved ASAP for some major revision. Thanks in advance / wish I could be of more help. 72.1.206.21 16:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

As a Belgian student, I have edited this article. The topic on secondary education has been slightly extended. The disputed part of the article has been completely removed, because of the nonsensical nature of that part. Hardly anyone in Belgium disputes the quality of the education. It is quite classical, but I have never known anyone that studied Latin or Greek regretting that decision later on. Even more: for further university education, Latin and Greek come in very handy when studying languages, sciences (reading manuals in other languages), or medicine. I guess that some really traumatised 16year old, or perhaps an traumatised assistant of that quoted professor (never heard of the man), wrote it.

However it is true that the suicide rate in Belgian youth is among the highest, and that this relates to the stress put on youth to perform as the best. The system is quite competitive and indeed stresses plain knowledge rather than innovation and entrepreneurship. But as Belgium ranks among the highest in welfare statistics, it seems not so bad at all, i'd say.

I changed the parts about secondary education and higher education. The part about secondary education had a HUGE mistake in it, as a B.S.O. degree does NOT allow entrance to a university, except if an optional 7th year of study is taken. I added information about entrance to universities/colleges, and the cost of higher education, as well as rearanging the whole Bologna-part, as the order seemed illogical.134.58.253.131 23:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improvements

I made some improvements on the article:

• The claim The education system of the Flemish region alone would have ranked first. about the PISA-study does not make sense. But it is true that Dutch-speaking students score generally better than French-speaking students. So I corrected that, and included a reference to the study.
• I removed the link to Flemish education, since that article is just a copy of this article; I already nominated it for deletion.
• Converted some text into lists for clarity
• Added more information about education in the French Community, since some sections only mentioned the structure in the Flemish community
• Added some important Dutch and French words
• Added See also and External links sections
• Added, removed and corrected some internal links

I will continue this work later today. Stijn Vermeeren 10:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Why would you say that the claim The education system of the Flemish region alone would have ranked first. does not make sense ?

Given that indeed the Belgian governement as early nothing to say anymore about the education in Belgium (far less even then the European Union), and given that the organizationa and the performance of the educational systems of the communities are so different, your choice looks like a very politil, and strictly personal POV! Thus, against Wikipedia.--Rudi Dierick 14:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the claim isn't supported by references, and therefore up until now -if it were true- would constitute original research, so it should be removed from the article, but I wouldn't say that it doesn't make sense. The Belgian score is an average of the results from the 3 communities. If you would only take the Flemish results into account, it is quite possible that you would reach higher figures. And if these figures would be higher than those of the country that was ranked first in the study, Flanders would rank first. Or am I overlooking something ? --LucVerhelst 10:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

There was no reference included indeed, BUT hat statement reflects the consensual opinion among specialists among this, and it is, in recent years, also more and more acknowledged by leading French-speaking politicians. therefor, claiming that the lack of references would be a good enough reason looks very much like searching for a lame excuse for either ignorance, either partisan censorship! --Rudi Dierick 14:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll describe my objections more in detail:

• The study does not make an general raking of countries, but only makes rankings in different domains (mathematics, litteracy, science...). There actually is a study about the results of Flanders as a region in PISA 2003. It ranks Flanders first, but only in mathematics.
• Why should the Belgian regions be ranked against states? Why wouldn't we divide the other states in regions too? When we do that, there will probably be another region scoring higher than Flanders. There is really no objective way of making a ranking this way.

Apparently you really ignorant about education and international studies into the success of educational systems. there re NO such studies that compare 'the Belgian regions' 'against states', fr the simple reaon that the region have NOTHING to do with the educational systms. Education is a matter of the communities!

When the study was published, many media actually headlined Flanders best of the world in education or something like that without making these nuances. But Wikipedia should do better than that :-) Stijn Vermeeren 11:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

True.

I agree it shouldn't be entered in the article.

Hm, and why not do beter then just stupidly leve out valuable information? Why not include all relevnt, correct and valid infomation, AND present it also in a precise, nuanced way? --Rudi Dierick 14:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Just for the discussion : Why should the Belgian regions be ranked against states? Because in Belgium, unlike in other states examined, the organisation of education is purely a community matter. Differences in structure and financing education exist, and influence the level of education. An objective study takes these differences into account, and therefore doesn't treat Belgium as a unity.

So, the OECD shouldn't base the study on the states, but on the level that decides upon structure and financing. For these countries where these things are national matters, the national states should be used, for these countries where these things are regional matters, the subnational entities should be used.

Please tell the OECD I said so. :-D

--LucVerhelst 11:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Good point. --Stijn Vermeeren 12:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

...but when I think about it, the situation in Belgium is not so exceptional. For example, education in Germany is regulated by the sixteen Bundesländer. Stijn Vermeeren 12:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Grin. That's why I changed my text, made it more general... --LucVerhelst 14:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way : great job, improving the article. Thanks. --LucVerhelst 10:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] civil engineer

See discussion on the Civil engineer page LHOON 20:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)