European School delay ‘will worsen’ cramped classrooms

By Leen Van Parys

THE long-awaited fourth European School in Brussels will be fully operational only in 2010, contrary to earlier promises of a partial opening in 2006 and an opening at full capacity in 2008. In a letter naming the old Cadet School in Laeken as the location of the fourth Brussels school, the Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said that it would only open partially in 2009 and at full capacity in 2010. A Belgian government official said that the Laeken site was the cheapest available option.

Parents' organizations and school management have demanded changes by 2006 at the latest, but it is unlikely that their calls for interim measures until the fourth school is opened will be met.

“This is a serious problem. We risk a serious overpopulation in all three Brussels schools if no intermediate measures are taken,” Alain Kruys, president of the European School Parents Association at the Uccle school said.

Two of the three Brussels schools - Woluwe and Ixelles - are already operating above normal capacity level. In addition, the schools are expecting some 2,800 extra pupils from new member states by 2006.

The Belgian government and the board of directors have rejected demands for interim measures in the form of short-term leases of extra space.

“We will write to the board of directors to request again interim solutions, but I am not very optimistic,” said Paul Soyer, president of the Parents' Association at the Woluwe school.

“We have a serious problem of overcrowding, so I have been waiting impatiently for the opening of a fourth school,” Dimitri Sfingopoulos, head of the Woluwe school said. “We don't have enough classes to organize the lessons and our canteen is a real disaster. Our school is too small.”

The situation is similar in Ixelles while only the school in Uccle still has some capacity left. To cope with the extra influx of pupils from new member states, it was decided that Uccle would take the Polish, Hungarian, Slovenian and Maltese sections. Woluwe houses the pupils from the Baltic States. About 70 new pupils from the Baltic States were registered in September, but this number is likely to increase in the coming years.

The European Commission believes that the three existing schools will be able to house all pupils until 2008. “We are concerned that the date [of the opening] has slipped to 2009, but the calculations done for the next few years show that there is no crisis. There might be a shortfall in 2008, but I am sure we will be able to manage this,” an official at the Commission's administrative unit said.

• Leen Van Parys is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

Article reports that the long-awaited fourth European School in Brussels would be fully operational only in 2010, contrary to earlier promises of a partial opening in 2006 and an opening at full capacity in 2008.

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