Evaluation of Belgium’s COVID-19 Responses

Fostering Trust for a More Resilient Society

Report

14 December 2023

5. Education in Belgium during the pandemic

Abstract

This chapter examines how the government of Belgium managed the COVID-19 crisis in education, with a particular focus on formal school education. The study is structured around two main areas of analysis: educational continuity during the various stages of the health crisis and the processes of engaging, co-ordinating and communicating with stakeholders. The OECD proposes recommendations to support actions taken by Belgium’s education systems in the future, both in the context of the pandemic and for other similar crises, considering the broader needs of the country’s education systems.

Key findings

Like most countries, Belgium faced significant challenges in ensuring education continuity during the health crisis. Across the country's three language communities, the initial closure of schools revealed a widespread lack of readiness for remote teaching and learning, coupled with uneven access to digital infrastructure. Initial efforts by the three language communities aimed to mitigate the damage caused by the sudden transition to remote learning, focusing on maintaining contact with students and identifying learning essentials. The three language communities made it a priority to reopen schools as early as possible, which resulted in Belgium having one of the lowest rates of national school closures among OECD and European countries. The crisis also acted as a catalyst for increased efforts in digital tools and resources, as well as fostering the acquisition of digital competencies among education stakeholders. These advances could support the readiness of the three education systems for future crises.

At the same time, teachers and other education actors faced overwork and exhaustion during the crisis as they navigated the principle of school autonomy and multiple layers of governance. Moreover, the absence of adequate monitoring and information infrastructure has hindered a data-driven assessment of the impact of the pandemic on students’ performance and the experience of education stakeholders during the crisis. This highlights a need to strengthen this infrastructure to guide policymaking and facilitate administrative processes.

Co-ordination between different actors during the health crisis was a key dimension of the pandemic response in education. Belgium’s three education ministers shared a common goal of minimising school closures, fostering enhanced collaboration among the three language communities. However, while education was a key consideration in political decision making, challenges arose in implementing decisions at the school level. Furthermore, although political actors consulted widely with education stakeholders, challenges arose in communicating decisions in a timely manner. There were also limited mechanisms for communicating with students and receiving feedback from them. School autonomy enabled teachers and school leaders to remain agile during the crisis, but some of them would have benefitted from additional support to face these unprecedented challenges.

5.1. Introduction

This chapter analyses the government of Belgium’s COVID-19 response in the field of education, particularly school-level education. The analysis is based on national and international data, as well as on two main surveys of the key actors in the three Belgian education systems conducted for the purposes of this evaluation (see chapter 1 for more information on this survey).

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, from February to June 2020, the lack of vaccines and treatments led governments in most countries across the world to close schools completely as part of measures to contain the virus. In most cases, online tools and platforms became the primary mode of delivery. Teachers had to adapt their practices overnight, with many using digital tools for the first time, while education institutions and policymakers took rapid action to help students access learning during this period (Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021[1]; OECD, 2022[2]).

As vaccines became available in 2021, both in Belgium and on a global scale, full school closures became less common, with several education systems being able to opt for partial closures. This created unprecedented challenges for education actors who had to make use of hybrid learning to adapt how they delivered education (e.g. in terms of specific areas or grade levels) to reduce the number of students attending school in person. Teaching professionals and policymakers also faced the challenge of implementing health protocols (e.g. social distancing, masks, testing) to ensure the safety of those students who were physically attending school. Education actors did so while often having to continue providing distance learning. Another key challenge faced relates to diagnosing and remediating the learning losses that occurred during school closures. Addressing all these unprecedented challenges often required additional financial resources, which resulted in several OECD countries increasing their education budgets in response to the pandemic (OECD, 2022[2]).

While post-secondary education is beyond the scope of this evaluation, it is important to note that it also experienced significant challenges around the world. In the case of higher education, pandemic containment measures meant that like schools, higher education campuses in many countries were fully closed by the end of March 2020, and at least partially closed until vaccines became widely available. In many cases, institutional closures implied a rapid transition to distance learning and an increase in the use of digital technologies since these practices played a limited role in higher education delivery before the pandemic. Although the measures implemented by governments affected the mental health and well-being of students at all education levels, there were specific ways in which these affected students in post-secondary education. These include difficulties experienced by those requiring site-based learning resources (e.g. laboratories, fine arts studios, clinical or work-based learning components), disproportionate family responsibilities particularly for female students, or financial distress due to lost income from part-time work. Pandemic-related travel restrictions also posed a barrier to international student mobility, meaning institutions with a greater dependence on international fees faced a drop in revenues. (OECD, 2020[3]; OECD, 2021[4]; OECD, 2021[5]).

In the case of Belgium, higher education institutions were closed from 16 March until 19 May 2020, which was a shorter duration compared to the majority of OECD countries (OECD, 2021[5]). Yet, moving forward, it will be important for the Belgium's education sector to reflect on which of the challenges and lessons learned from the school systems also applied to post-secondary education and which others were specific to the latter. Furthermore, Belgium will benefit from reflecting on how the challenges emerging in schools in the aftermath of the pandemic may translate later for learners further in their education pathways.

Taking in consideration this international context, this chapter analyses how the education sector in Belgium specifically managed the pandemic. It begins by setting the overall context for education in Belgium, outlining how the sector is organised, as well as some of its structural strengths and challenges. The study then looks at educational continuity during the various stages of the pandemic and the processes for engaging, co-ordinating and communicating with stakeholders, both in the overall education sector in Belgium and within individual systems. To conclude, the chapter then outlines some policy recommendations that Belgium could implement to support future actions in the context of the pandemic or other crises, whilst taking into account the broader needs of the education sector.

5.2. A decentralised and diverse education sector organised based on language communities

OECD data from 2021 shows that Belgium has about 1.8 million students in primary and secondary schools (excluding the few private schools that do not receive state funding) (UOE education database, 2022[6]). These schools are organised into distinct and autonomous education systems. Indeed, in Belgium, each of the three language communities has a separate education system. As a result, education policies, as well as the resources available for schooling, vary greatly across the country. This structural heterogeneity across education systems has been a key feature of Belgium’s education policy response during the pandemic. In this context, this section provides a brief overview of the main elements of the school education system in Belgium, as a way to better understand Belgium’s performance in regard to education continuity, co-operation between stakeholders and education outcomes. In doing so, it provides an overview of the system’s high level of decentralisation and diversity, as well as the equity and quality challenges it faces.

5.2.1. A highly decentralised and diverse sector

Belgium has a highly decentralised education governance. Each of the three language communities (the sub-national entities governing the three language communities in the country, see Chapter 1) has a separate education system that provides a high degree of autonomy to its institutions. The Federal State’s powers are limited to determining the beginning and end of compulsory education, establishing minimum requirements for the recognition of diplomas, and setting retirement regulations for teachers and other education staff (OECD, 2017[7]). This means that each of the three language communities establishes its own education policies on the vision, improvement, and operation of their respective education systems, including for their teaching work force, or funding arrangements (see Box ‎5.1). According to data from 2017, some 58% of students in Belgium attended Flemish Community schools, while 37% attended French Community schools, and 5% were in schools from the German-speaking Community.

Box ‎5.1. Educational mandates in the language communities

The governance of the education systems in Belgium is highly diverse, starting from varying mandates of each language community in regard to education:

In the Flemish Community, the Department of Education and Training is responsible for all stages of education and training from pre-primary education onwards.
In the French Community, there are two relevant ministerial portfolios. The Ministry of Education is responsible for pre-primary to upper secondary education. Higher education comes under the portfolio of a different minister, along with scientific research and youth policy.
In the German-speaking Community, one Minister of Education is responsible for all education levels from early childhood education and care. Relevant departments within the Ministry of the German-speaking Community develop and implement education policy.

Sources: Flemish Department of Education and Training (n.d.[8]), Over het departement Onderwijs en Vorming [About the Department of Education and Training], https://onderwijs.vlaanderen.be/nl/over-onderwijs-en-vorming/over-het-departement-onderwijs-en-vorming-0 (accessed 12 October 2023); Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (n.d.[9]), Composition du Gouvernement [Composition of the Government], https://www.federation-wallonie-bruxelles.be/a-propos-de-la-federation/le-gouvernement/composition-gouvernement/ (accessed 12 October 2023); Ministry of the German-speaking Community (n.d.[10]), Die aktuelle Regierung der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft Belgiens [The current government of the German-speaking Community of Belgium], https://ostbelgienlive.be/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-218/8563_read-50493/ (accessed 12 October 2023).

As such, while the Belgian regions, which also have a constitutional status as federated entities of the Belgium government, are organised along geographical lines (Flanders in the North, Wallonia in the South, and Brussels-Capital in the city of the same name), the language communities do not adhere to the same geographical divisions. For example, the Brussels Capital region hosts both Flemish Community and French Community schools, and the Walloon region hosts schools managed by the French and German-speaking Communities. However, since the Belgian constitution guarantees parents and children freedom to choose their school, some institutions host a student population coming from more than one of the three main language communities.

The principle of freedom of education, protected by Belgium’s constitution, also gives every natural or legal person the right to open a school. School boards also manage one or more schools, and have significant autonomy over their overarching philosophy, teaching methods, staffing and curriculum (although the curriculum must be compatible with achieving mandated learning outcomes). Furthermore, based on their funding and governance arrangements, schools across the communities may belong to one of three ‘networks’: official education under the direct responsibility of the community, grant-aided schools that are publicly managed (e.g. by cities, municipalities, or provinces) or grant-aided schools that are privately managed (these are often religious schools, but also schools with a distinct educational philosophy, such as Montessori schools) (OECD, 2017[7]).

Several stakeholders also actively contribute to education policy development and implementation. School governing boards can join an umbrella organisation that represents their interests in discussions with federated entities, as well as provides practical support in areas related to curriculum and pedagogy. In each language community, public organisations with a mandate for children and young people’s physical and mental health, and well-being, also played a key role in the pandemic response, notably through their involvement in testing and contact tracing in periods when schools were open. This includes the Pupil Guidance Centres in the Flemish Community (Centrum voor leerlingenbegeleiding, CLB), Kaleido Ostbelgien in the German-speaking Community and French Community’s Birth and Childhood Office (Office de la Naissance de l’Enfance, ONE), which manages a network of School Health Promotion Services (Services de Promotion de La Santé À L'école, PSE).

This high degree of decentralisation and diversity within the three schooling systems makes it difficult to draw general conclusions about the pandemic response. This chapter assesses the strengths and challenges of Belgium’s education landscape that broadly apply across the three language communities, while also pointing to any differences between the three education systems.

5.2.2. Belgium has increased education investment, but still faces important equity challenges

Belgium combines high levels of public financial investment in education and high education outcomes, as evidenced by its performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Yet, the country also encounters comparatively high challenges in ensuring equity in education outcomes across student populations compared to other OECD countries. At the national level, Belgium is one of the countries with the highest annual level of education spending per student in the OECD. In 2020, it had a total spending on primary to tertiary level educational institutions per full-time equivalent student of USD 16 429, compared to an OECD average of USD 12 647 (adjusted for purchasing power). Furthermore, although expenditure on primary to tertiary educational institutions per full-time equivalent student did increase on average across the OECD during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (by 0.4% from 2019 to 2020), it increased at a significantly higher rate in Belgium (2.3% for the same period) (OECD, 2023[11])

Data from PISA 2018 shows that Belgian students performed overall above the OECD average in reading, mathematics and science, although with important variations depending on the education system or socio-economic background students come from. The results vary significantly across language communities, as students in the French and German-speaking Communities achieved reading and science scores below the OECD average.

More recent data provides a sense of the evolution of student outcomes since 2020. Of the 32 participating entities with data in both the 2016 and 2021 cycles of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), 21 of them saw a decline in the average reading scores of students in Grade 4. Since COVID-19 occurred between the two rounds, this suggests the pandemic could have had some widespread negative impact on students’ reading performance. In the Flemish Community, the average reading score declined by 14 points between PIRLS 2016 and PIRLS 2021 but remained above the PIRLS Scale Centerpoint of 500 (i.e. the average achievement across participating countries in the first cycle in 2001). Conversely, average reading scores in the French Community remained stable across the PIRLS 2016 and 2021 cycles but were below the Scale Centerpoint.

Belgium also encounters challenges in promoting equity in education. At the national level, the socio-economic status of students had one of the largest impacts on reading performance in the OECD, explaining 17.2% of the variance in performance (compared to an OECD average of 12%). Grade repetition is also prevalent in Belgium, notably among disadvantaged students. In 2018, 30.8% of Belgian students repeated at least one grade during primary, lower secondary, or upper secondary school, which is well above the OECD average of 11.4%. Furthermore, with 48.1 percentage points, the difference in grade repetition between disadvantaged and advantaged students was the highest of all OECD countries for which the data was available. Yet, international evidence suggests that grade repetition does little to improve outcomes, is costly to education systems, and can contribute to student disengagement and dropout (OECD, 2018[12]) (see Figure ‎5.1).

Figure ‎5.1. In Belgium, socio-economic status has a high impact on reading performance and the likelihood of repeating a grade (PISA 2018)

Moreover, the score point difference in reading between non-immigrant students and their peers with immigrant background, accounting for gender and socio-economic factors, was below the OECD average of 24 points in the French Community (11 points), but above average in the Flemish Community (32 points) and the German-speaking Community (32 points) (OECD, 2019[13]). Overall, between PISA 2000 and PISA 2018, Belgium’s performance remained mostly unchanged in reading and declined in mathematics and science (OECD, 2019[15]).

These heterogenous outcomes across student populations and the resulting equity challenges were a key consideration in the education sectors’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the three language communities implemented specific measures to support the most vulnerable students. As was the case in several OECD countries, this included targeting additional resources based on students’ socioeconomic status and providing additional support for students with special educational needs (SEN) (Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021[1]; OECD, 2021[4]; OECD, 2022[2]). These measures are discussed in further detail in the section on educational continuity.

Moving forward beyond the pandemic, the education systems in Belgium need to continue addressing these pre-existing challenges of strengthening the equity and quality in education across the country. Drawing lessons from the pandemic will help the education sector better help students to manage possible effects from the pandemic. The following sections analyse these key lessons for the next few years to come.

5.3. Educational continuity during the health crisis

Ensuring education continuity during the COVID-19 crisis was seen as of paramount importance in all countries affected by the pandemic due to the multifaceted role that schools play, and the impact they have in individuals and in society. Countries looked to maintain education continuity as much as possible to mitigate the disruption on students’ learning and their academic progress, as well as on expected impacts on their educational attainments and future opportunities; but also, to support their well-being and that of their families.

In this context, this section investigates how the three language communities managed education continuity throughout the different stages of the pandemic. As such, it first discusses the measures that the communities took in the early stages of the pandemic starting in early March 2020, then looks at the efforts made to re-open schools. It finally analyses, based on available evidence, the impact of these measures in education delivery across communities on student outcomes.

5.3.1. During the first school closures, authorities adopted a ‘damage limitation’ approach for what appeared would be a short period

In Belgium, the federal government made the decision to close primary and secondary schools early in the second week of March 2020.1 In a context of uncertainty and following similar measures adopted in neighbouring countries, the decision was announced on Thursday 12 March that schools would close from the evening of Friday 13 March to Friday 3 April (the beginning of the Easter Holidays) to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Following this initial announcement, the return to school was postponed twice. Overall, during the 2019/20 school year, schools in Belgium remained closed to all students during 34 instruction days. This was among the lowest number of days across OECD countries (OECD, 2022[16]).

During this initial phase, the language communities put a range of resources at schools’ disposal to support the transition to remote learning. These ranged from the provision of digital equipment to teaching and learning resources. The measures taken are consistent with efforts undertaken in other OECD countries for education delivery in the early stages of the pandemic. OECD data shows that in the majority of countries, remote education arrangements were put in place in emergency conditions to palliate the effects of school closures on education continuity (Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021[1]). In Belgium, the federated entities also put in place remote support to students’ mental health and well-being, areas that were quickly identified as needed special attention.

Belgian education systems were largely unprepared for the initial school closures in terms of digital support, with important efforts undertaken to level up this capacity

Across the globe, school systems had to rapidly improvise to ensure some continuity in the education of children and adapt their teaching methods to a context in which, in the space of a day, education moved from the school to the home for most children and the mode of instruction shifted from face-to-face contact to remote learning (Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021[1]). Indeed, during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, online tools and platforms represented the predominant modes of delivery of lessons and instructional material for students as well as for communication between teachers and students in many countries.

In the case of Belgium, evidence suggests that the language communities were overall ill prepared to be able to support education actors in teaching and learning during this period. This low level of preparedness relates in particular to the uneven access to digital infrastructure across the country and uneven levels of digital literacy among education stakeholders. Indeed, in 2018, 29% of school principals in Belgium reported that they did not have enough digital technology for instruction in their schools or that this technology was inadequate (4 percentage points above the OECD average); and 22% had reported insufficient Internet access in their schools (3 percentage points above the OECD average). Furthermore, only 56% of secondary education teachers felt they could support student learning through the use of digital technology, which is 11 percentage points below the OECD average. School principals’ and teachers’ perceived inadequacies or lack of self-efficacy regarding digital technology were higher in public (compared to private) schools, as well as in schools with a high (compared to low) concentration of disadvantaged students. They were also significantly higher in the French Community than in the Flemish Community (OECD, 2019[17]).

As a prerequisite to enable remote learning access, the three language communities first sought to equip students with digital equipment. In the French Community, for instance, as early as April 2020, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation publicly procured 1 390 laptops; and on 19 May 2020, the government opened a platform where private firms could donate used laptops that were then refurbished and leased to students in socio-economically disadvantaged schools through the educational networks. In the Flemish Community, the non-profit organisation Digital for Youth distributed over 11 000 laptops to schools who requested refurbished laptops for vulnerable students. The government also provided schools with additional funds for generic ICT equipment (EUR 4.3 M in March 2020 and then EUR 34 M for the 2020/21 school year) and free Wi-Fi for students without internet access at home. The German-speaking Community also ordered laptops from Digital for Youth. In April 2020, 500 laptops were supplied to secondary school students. School directors allocated the devices based on pre-defined criteria of social need. Students could keep the laptops until the end of the school year 2020/21, when school directors decided on possible loan extensions. This constituted an important effort across the communities, but ensuring sufficient access to digital equipment across families and the teaching body remained a challenge.

Initially, the Belgian education authorities, umbrella organisations and stakeholders, also provided few digital teaching and learning tools and resources to teachers. In France or Luxembourg, by contrast, pre-existing resources were quickly digitised, and government-licensed digital resources were distributed to schools.

To face this challenge, the three language communities made efforts to develop and increase their provision of digital teaching and learning tools and resources as the pandemic progressed. The three communities had varying levels of success in this endeavour, however. In the French Community, school principals received guidelines to improve digital communication between schools and parents. Partnerships between the French Community government and RTBF, the public TV network, allowed to produce a series of video content called “Y’a pas école, on révise !” (“School’s off, let’s study”) that were available on the Auvio platform. Furthermore, the French Community government made efforts to further disseminate resources that were already available before the crisis, for instance ICT rubrics (“Instant TIC”) for teachers to help them expand their digital teaching skills, or practical guides to improve their understanding of how to apply the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) in the classroom (The “Comprendre et appliquer le RGPD en classe”, or “Understanding and applying GDPR in the classroom”).2 The government also designed and uploaded interactive courses on EAD, the community’s e-learning platform, which aligned with the community curriculum in primary and secondary education. Later on, it also provided free access to the E-classe platform, developed in-house, where education authorities designed and uploaded new lesson plans. E-classe aimed to provide teachers with tools and advice to maintain contact with their students, mitigate learning difficulties and eventually advance their teaching.3 However, this publicly owned solution may have come too late for actors in the field, who had already transitioned to commercial solutions. Typical examples of tools used include the use of commercial learning management systems (LMS) such as ClassDojo (in primary education) or SmartSchools (in secondary education), as well as the acquisition of private licences to access Microsoft Office 365 products (and in particular Microsoft Teams) or Google Classroom. School principals were nonetheless grateful that E-classe was provided as a non-mandatory solution.

On the contrary, the Flemish Community opted for the procurement of commercial tools and licences, instead of developing their own public systems. In line with the community’s devolution of responsibility and its governance of digital infrastructure, the Flemish government also gave full autonomy to schools to procure their own digital resources but supported them by negotiating prices with suppliers or by providing general procurement guidance (OECD, 2023[18]). For instance, the Flemish government supported schools in their uptake of private solutions such as SmartSchool, Microsoft Office 365, or Google Classrooms. It provided extra funding to enable schools to access learning management systems, to loan devices for students, and financial support for individuals to develop their own learning resources through the Wezooz academy. It also gave free access, although only temporarily, to learning resources through GEWU, VRT, Meemoo, and organised summer schools to help address potential learning losses.

In the German-speaking Community, support provided by the Ministry for schools and teachers was limited to centralising digital and other distance learning resources on a pre-existing website.4 The Ministry also organised digital training sessions, but teachers had the autonomy to develop their own digital materials. Yet, available evidence suggests that teachers did not always receive sufficient training to implement digital learning during the pandemic. For instance, parent representatives and teachers report only receiving Microsoft Teams training towards the end of the 2020/21 school year, when such training would have been useful much earlier on in the pandemic. Teachers also reported delays in getting personal devices to students who needed them during the pandemic.

Despite these different efforts across the three language communities, available evidence collected by the OECD indicates that around 8 out 10 school principals were (very) dissatisfied by their respective Community’s provision of distance learning (for students) or teaching (for teachers) equipment, as well as by the provision of digital and non-digital resources for teaching and learning (Figure ‎5.2).5 Among this sample of school principals, dissatisfaction levels across these indicators were slightly higher in the French Community (about 9 out of 10) than in the Flemish Community (about 8 out of 10) and in the German-speaking Community (about 6 out of 10).

Figure ‎5.2. School principals’ level of satisfaction with the support they received from their respective community to ensure education continuity

During this time, federated entities focused on learning essentials as a short-term solution, also prioritising students’ well-being and those with special needs

During the first phase of school closures, the three language communities explicitly prioritised limiting potential damage to children’s learning until schools could reopen. As a result, education stakeholders received instructions and guidance from their respective language communities to do their best given the circumstances. Still, all three communities paid special attention to supporting students’ well-being and to prioritising the needs of students with learning difficulties or specific groups of students.

Indeed, all three language communities perceived distance learning as a temporary solution. In this context, they sought to limit the damage that school closures could have on educational continuity and outcomes as much as possible, all while focusing most efforts on vulnerable or special groups of students. In the French Community, teachers were initially explicitly asked not to teach new content to their students remotely to avoid the widening of gaps in results between students in households with good conditions for remote learning and those in households with less favourable conditions. This language community also cancelled the central end-of-cycle exams in 2020 and focused efforts on maintaining contacts rather than ensuring learning continuity. It later shared guidelines on how to prioritise the contents of the school curriculum (the “essentials”, as defined by the General Inspectorate Agency). While this prioritisation may have led some students to perceive other subjects as non-essential and some teachers to feel that their subject was devalued, most appreciated these efforts during the two years of disruption. In the Flemish and German-speaking Communities, teachers also focused on learning reinforcement during the first weeks of the crisis, given the uncertainty on how long school closures would last, before progressively advancing to new content. Almost no synchronous class time took place online during the first phase of school closures or when schools partially reopened in 2020.

In a similar vein, all three language-communities looked to mitigate effects of school closures on students’ mental health through various means during the first waves of the pandemic. Indeed, mental health and well-being issues emerged as key concerns for paediatricians and education actors who argued that measures implemented to protect the health of young people should also account for their mental health. In particular, school closures and distance teaching and learning placed additional stress on school staff, students and their parents.

First, several hotlines were mobilised to offer mental and well-being support to students and their parents (e.g. “103” in the French Community, “CLBch@t” in the Flemish Community) or broad information on the health crisis. Teachers and parents could also access modules providing advice on the organisation of learning from home while keeping a healthy schedule (e.g. “Conseils aux élèves pour le travail à domicile” in the French Community). The Flemish Community also granted the Flemish Association of Students financial support to conduct online surveys in order to collect information on students’ experiences throughout the pandemic relative to school closures, distance learning, among others; and to foster peer-support opportunities.

The French Community provided additional resources to support students’ mental health. As such, reducing the curriculum scope by defining the “essential” subjects, aimed to reduce the pressure on school staff and their students. The community also strived to ensure the sanitary restrictions remained proportionate to the public health context. Increased funding for psychological, medical and social centres (“Centres psycho-médico-sociaux”, or CPMS) was allocated to schools through a formula that accounted for the student-per-centre ratio and for schools’ socioeconomic index. This last initiative was supported by European Union funding during the 2020/21 school year.

Later during the 2021/22, the Flemish Community provided an additional EUR 14 million to its Pupil Guidance Centres (CLBs) for the detection of students with special needs or extra care, with the aim of actively encouraging them and their parents to meet with CLB staff when needed. Those resources also supported CLB staff in the execution of the contact tracing in schools.

Well-being support also targeted parents, albeit to a lesser extent. The three Flemish Parents Associations conducted several online surveys to capture the opinion and experiences of parents during the pandemic on topics such as communication from schools, students’ learning difficulties and distance education as a whole. The results of those surveys were shared and discussed with the Flemish Minister of Education and other representatives of the Flemish education sector during COVID-19 consultations. As early as February 2020, authorities facilitated schools with model letters to be addressed to parents worried by the incoming pandemic; they also funded interpreters to facilitate communication with non-native parents.

In response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, educational authorities in the three language communities took various actions to support specific groups of students. These measures included continuous school care for the children of essential sector workers, uninterrupted bus transport for special education students, efforts to keep schools in special education as open as possible, and adapted mask-wearing measures for these students. Digital resources such as laptops and free Wi-Fi were also provided to the most vulnerable students, and additional financial support was provided to schools, including boarding schools that organised school care.

In the French Community, additional support measures prioritised students facing learning difficulties. During periods of hybrid learning, students with special needs or with learning difficulties were given priority to return to schools. In the 2020/21 school year, pedagogical strategies emphasised differentiated learning and remediation practices for students who struggled. Customised extra support sessions, known as “AP-COVID support periods”, were granted to primary and secondary schools upon request, with priority given on schools with low socio-economic indicators (between one and 10 in the ISE scale). These initiatives were complemented by strengthening psychological, medical and social centres (CPMS) and the recruitment of support profiles such as educators or teaching assistants in secondary schools.6

The primary objectives of these actions were to create conditions for differentiated teaching practices, reinforce temporary student support, and provide additional resources to address students' academic and well-being challenges. These efforts would have, in principle, allowed schools to implement targeted and enhanced pedagogical and educational support for students facing difficulties in learning and overall school experience, ultimately addressing potential dropout issues.

However, the historical autonomy given to schools and teachers appears to have translated in an atomisation of responsibility across governance levels. Insufficiencies or inadequacies (or both) emerged in the pedagogical support available to schools, in a governance context where the federal government entirely devolves the responsibility for providing access to education to the three language communities’ government, who also devolve large part of their responsibilities to school networks and to schools themselves.

In the survey conducted by the OECD, 8 out in 10 school principals who replied expressed that they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied by their respective community’s support to students with special needs, students from single-parent families, students who do not speak the main language of instruction at home or with a migration background, students from socio-economically disadvantaged families, and students with lower academic achievement (OECD, 2023[19]).5 These responses indicate that, in spite of the efforts put in place by the language communities to provide material support to these student populations, schools still struggled with addressing the diverse and complex learning needs of their students and would have appreciated more targeted support to mitigate those inequalities.

This is not to say that Belgium alone faced this type of challenges. Indeed, OECD analyses show that there is little doubt that the negative impact of the pandemic has been greater among disadvantaged populations internationally (Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021[1]). Rates of infection and COVID-19-related deaths were higher in areas of low as opposed to high socioeconomic status in England and France and among certain ethnic groups. At the same time, infection rates were positively related to education and higher among people at the top and bottom of the income distribution than in the middle. Children from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds had greater difficulties than other children with access to the devices and connectivity necessary to continue their education at home. Students who dropped out of education during the period of lockdown appear more likely to come disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds and to have had a prior history of difficulties with schooling. In the countries covered, there is little evidence of the socio-economic status of parents having an impact on the amount of time children spent on schoolwork or the amount of time parents spent assisting children: children from all backgrounds seem to have devoted more or less the same time to their schoolwork and to have received the same amount of parental assistance.

To summarise, evidence suggests that the three education systems were largely unprepared for the crisis and the pivot towards remote learning through digital technology, with great efforts undertaken to level up. This seems related partly to teachers’ lack of preparation to use digital tools, but also the limited or uneven availability of computers and other digital resources across schools and families. In the event of a future crisis, the communities may consider at least providing teachers with guidance on valuable learning resources – even though this is typically out of their usual scope of governance – or at least identifying which of the multiple systems’ stakeholders could oversee this responsibility.

Elsewhere initiatives led by expert teachers played an important role in addressing these challenges (see Box ‎5.2).

Box ‎5.2. Teacher-led initiatives to support the implementation of distance learning (international experiences)

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, several governments led or funded initiatives where expert teachers supported other teachers in implementing distance learning and using digital technologies. In many cases, the initiatives emerged from existing policies, or have continued beyond the initial phases of the pandemic.

Korea established an online community of 10 000 representative teachers, with one teacher from almost every school in the country, to resolve any issues teachers encountered implementing distance learning. Subsequently, the Knowledge Spring platform, launched in 2021, addressed teachers’ professional learning needs during the pandemic and continues to be a valuable resource for educators. Through it, teachers can select short courses and video lectures based on their needs, with expert teachers providing the content and acting as consultants for colleagues across the country.

In a similar vein, Portugal’s Ministry of Education established a brigade of over 100 educators to support teachers in adapting their practice in the early stages of the pandemic and to collect and disseminate examples of good practice. This group drew on the regional teams already established to support and monitor networks of schools as part of curriculum reforms that began in 2017. It included members with expertise in areas such as literacy, curriculum development and digital education.

In England (United Kingdom), a group of teachers and education experts established Oak National Academy in April 2020 with funding support from the Department for Education. Originally launched as an online classroom to direct teachers and parents towards quality resources during school closures, Oak has increasingly provided more general support for lesson planning and curriculum development. This includes some 40 000 resources designed by teachers for teachers, such as slides and worksheets for individual lessons, lesson videos to model and support delivery, and curriculum plans to support longer-term planning. Resources are free to access and adaptable to schools’ specific context.

Source: OECD (2020[20]), Education Policy Outlook: Portugal¸ OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/education/policy-outlook/country-profile-Portugal-2020.pdf; OECD (2021[4]), Education Policy Outlook 2021: Shaping Responsive and Resilient Education in a Changing World, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/75e40a16-en.

To develop the system’s digital preparedness for an eventual need to move again to full remote learning, Belgium needs to consider the extent to which access to digital infrastructure, as well as the capacity to teach and learn with digital tools and resources, remains uneven. In the event of a future disruption, this will help the education sector define if a strategy should focus on limiting potential damages, rather than setting ambitious learning objectives. However, to better adapt to (rather than merely mitigate) any type of future disruption, Belgium should capitalise on the COVID-19 experience to strengthen the preparedness and resilience of its education systems, notably by sustaining efforts on expanding the country’s digital education infrastructure and fostering teachers’ and students’ digital literacy.

5.3.2. Once schools re-opened, education authorities encountered challenges in implementing health protocols

Given the important challenges encountered by schools in the country to ensure education continuity remotely, stakeholders quickly saw it as a priority to reopen schools physically, first partially and, as of May 2020, fully. In this context, this section describes and analyses the preparations that led to the reopening of schools across communities and the challenges that education stakeholders faced in implementing health protocols throughout the crisis.

Preparations for the re-opening of schools started early on and saw strong co-operation between the three language communities

From 18 May 2020, schools partially reopened across the country following a variety of arrangements. Typically, classes were divided into small groups taught alternatively in-person and remotely. In schools under the authority of the German-speaking Community, students in specific years of primary education (Grade 6), secondary education (Grades 2, 6 and 7) and special secondary education (Grade 5), as well as students with special needs, could return to schools two days per week. In the French and Flemish Communities, schools could decide on how to alternate delivery, with some opting for rotations to take place either every half-day, every second day, or every second week. End-of-cycle years were also given priority to return to in-person schooling. An increasing number of students were gradually able to return without alternance until 7 June, when schools fully reopened for the rest of the 2019/20 school year.

To ensure the safe functioning of schools during this period, the Flemish Community made some 150 000 masks and 200 000 bottles of hydroalcoholic gel available to schools upon request. They provided additional funding for them to purchase safety equipment and to arrange cover for teachers who were sick with COVID-19. The Pupil Guidance Centres were charged with contact tracing, while the Department of Education and Training developed procedures for school closures in the event of a contamination cluster.

The French Community acquired masks and delivered them to school staff and students before the first reopening of schools. Initially, their use was mandated for children above the age of 12 and the usual protective measures were encouraged everywhere. Some teachers and trade union representatives considered that the masks procured by the French Community government during the very first stages of the pandemic were of poor quality, which was addressed later on. An infection management protocol was put in place to deal with contamination on a case-by-case basis, with quarantine periods resulting in class closures in a snowball effect.7

Similar measures were decided by the German-speaking Community, with priority given to the reopening of all primary schools’ classes. Students were not required to wear a mask, except if the space standards of 4 m² per student and an additional 8 m² per teacher could not be met. Students were taught in groups of up to 14. Each group of students was taught for a maximum of 2 full days (or 4 half days) per week, avoiding half days as much as possible. Each student was given a fixed place in the classroom.

From the schools’ reopening in May 2020 until the end of the summer holidays, the three language communities collectively worked on a common health protocol for schools (see Box ‎5.3). Education being a responsibility entirely devolved to the federated entities, examples of country-wide collaboration are scarce as each language community faces its own specific challenges. However, the sense of urgency driven by the crisis, as well as the need to show a united front in face of a common crisis, made the collaboration between the three communities both possible and desirable.

This protocol gave them leeway in the organisation of hybrid and alternate learning in times of relatively slow virus propagation. For instance, schools could choose whether to alternate between groups of students on a daily basis (mornings and afternoons), every second day, every two days, or every week – except in the German-speaking Community where schools had to respect a predefined schedule. This flexibility appears to have been initially appreciated by schools, parents, and students, although the alternating groups every half-a-day, or every week, were at times challenging. Initially, education actors in the field welcomed this protocol as it enabled the return to in-person schooling that most wished for. However, following the protocol’s frequent changes and implementing its consequences proved time – and energy – consuming in the long run.

Box ‎5.3. A colour-coded protocol common to all three language communities

Before the start of the 2020/21 school year, the three Communities of Belgium co-designed a colour-coded protocol based on different risk scenarios. The common protocol applied to all grade levels from kindergarten to secondary education and included the use of face masks and social distancing. The four colour-coded scenarios were as follows:

Green (a vaccine is available or with herd immunity attained): All students go to school five days a week. All contacts are possible again, but hand hygiene remains strictly enforced. This scenario would apply when the health situation normalised, i.e. once.
Yellow (limited spread of the virus): All kindergarten and primary school students attend school five days a week. Secondary school students attend school four days per week and work from home on Wednesdays. All students wear a mask when social distancing is not possible.
Orange (widespread transmission of the virus): Secondary school classes split, with each half-group attending school on a rotating weekly basis. Kindergartens and primary schools continue to teach on-site to all students.
Red (highest risk scenario): Secondary schools are halved and follow the same rules as the orange scenario, with stricter hygiene rules and with contacts between students and teachers limited as much as possible.

Source: https://www.rtbf.be/article/coronavirus-en-belgique-quoi-qu-il-arrive-les-eleves-de-maternelles-et-primaires-iront-cinq-jours-par-semaine-a-l-ecole-10528735

The language communities also developed their own procedures and scenarios to close individual schools in case of cluster contamination and established contact tracing teams within their public agencies (e.g. the Pupil Guidance Centres (CLB) in the Flemish Community). Overall, three peaks of contamination were reached in Belgium, bringing the total number of COVID-19 national school closures to 44 days (see ‎Annex 5.A). This is one of the lowest totals across the OECD, where national school closures were indeed less common and shorter in 2020/21 than they were the year before. Keeping schools open was one of the priorities of the federal government appointed in October 2020. The total number of national school closures in Belgium across the three first school years of the pandemic was also lower than in neighbouring countries such as Germany (85 days), Austria (74 days) and the Netherlands (48 days), but higher than in Luxembourg and Switzerland (both 34 days) (see Figure ‎5.3). It was also during the 2020/21 school year that medical evidence collected from federal data started to indicate that schools were not a motor of the virus propagation, but more a mirror (and a collateral victim) of the surge of contaminations in the broader society (see Section of Coordination between actors later in this Chapter).

Figure ‎5.3. School closures due to COVID-19 (2020, 2021 and the first quarter of 2022)

Number of instruction days of full closure of lower secondary schools excluding school holidays, public holidays and weekends

Educational authorities faced multiple ongoing challenges to implement health protocols

The language communities became responsible for conducting the contact tracing in their education systems. The communities faced challenges relating to capacities to conduct and manage such sophisticated student records, as well as to managing workloads related to the health protocol management in addition to pedagogical delivery or being able to de-escalate from short-term crisis management to longer-term system management according to the evolution of the pandemic.

The French and German-speaking Communities faced similar challenges in rolling out contact tracing. Indeed, effective tracing of students was hindered by the fact that student information systems and data management tools were not widespread. Consequently, most of the contact tracing in schools was done manually, through copy-pasting and exchanges of spreadsheets, which was time-consuming and prone to errors and omissions (e.g. young people out of schools or enrolled in VET institutions could not be traced). Eventually, in the German-speaking Community, the education registers for Kaleido, the public agency in charge of educational matters, were merged with that of the general population. In addition, authorities in the French and German-speaking Communities report good co-operation between their entities on matters related to data exchange for contact tracing.

In the Flemish Community, the Pupil Guidance Centres (CLBs) in charge of contact tracing reported difficulties in coping with the evolving protocols, and the subsequent impacts these had on thresholds and quarantine decisions at the class or school levels. Fortunately, the CLB could rely on their own student administration and registration system (“Leerlingen Administratie en Registratie Systeem”, or LARS), different from the Flemish Community’s student information system (“Discimus”), and its dashboards to steer and operate the contact tracing with more ease, efficiency, and timeliness than in the two other communities. LARS exists since 2008 and has been strengthened throughout the years before the pandemic. During the crisis, the Pupil Guidance Centres (CLBs) received extra funding from the Flemish Community to further develop their information system so that they could automatically and in real time receive information from the Flemish Health Database (“Zorgatlas”) about infections of student and teachers, which facilitated contact tracing. This highlights both the difference in preparedness between the language communities on this front and the fact that such information infrastructure could not have been possibly set up in a few weeks during a context of disruption such as a sanitary crisis.

Another challenge that education actors in all three communities encountered as the crisis continued was the excess of work and overwhelming stress, in a context where Belgium (as well as other OECD countries) already faced teacher shortages, which was made even more acute when infections and quarantines affected school staff. In the Flemish Community, the CLB staff had to suspend their support to students with special needs for a while as a result of having to oversee contact tracing and other aspects of the immediate crisis management. As of 2023, they reported delays in their support sessions corresponding to a two-year waiting list. In the German-speaking Community, which is significantly smaller in size and population, the crisis had to be fought on the same number of fronts as in the two other language communities. Moreover, vertical transmissions and feedback loops are more direct as there exists virtually no intermediary layer between the government officials and the school authorities. In the French Community, the reform on continuous assessment implemented as part of the “Pacte pour un enseignement d’excellence” continued, which put an additional burden on teachers in their day-to-day management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether this was significant or not, it also points to overwork from school principals and teachers who ensured education continuity at the price of additional work and commitment on their side. As pointed out above, the traditional autonomy given to schools and school staff appears to have required balancing with more support from the federated entities and the umbrella organisations to carry out this additional workload, at least until the crisis was over.

Finally, education actors in the field felt that the health protocols were strict and challenging to put in place. This is in part because it took time before an international scientific consensus emerged on the joint facts that children were less at risk of developing severe symptoms after a COVID-19 infection than older people, and that schools were less of a motor than a mirror of the virus propagation in the broader society. However, it may have taken even more time before policy actions were adapted following this consensus. The early reopening of schools in 2020 was possible at the price of strict health protocols, thanks to a political compromise between the federal government and the three language communities, which showed a united front. As shown in previous sections, reopening schools was key – not to say indispensable – to ensuring education continuity, even in hybrid or partial mode; and overall, it was well done across the country.

Available evidence collected by the OECD suggests a degree of confusion at times among school staff, students, and parents when health protocols diverged among the three communities, given the high permeability of the education sector in Belgium. For example, there could be the case of several students in a Flemish Community school who spoke French at home, consumed French-speaking media, and therefore assumed the protocols for French Community schools applied to their school. This highlights the importance of minimising divergence between the three language communities in the event of a future crisis. Nonetheless, co-ordination for general coherence was possible overall among the three communities, as noted later in this Chapter.

Furthermore, as health protocols lost in relevance while still being demanding on school staff, there was a feeling of exhaustion from all stakeholders towards the end of the crisis. Some stakeholders, in particular teachers, also considered that there was no proper end to the crisis. De-escalating from the emergency situation has proven to be difficult, similarly to what was observed in the OECD review of the Luxembourg crisis management (OECD, 2022[21]). Although to a lesser extent, teachers in Belgium also reported that they struggled with the return to normal in terms of workload and time arrangement, with digital technologies having blurred the frontiers between time on and time off school duty.

The large autonomy historically granted to schools needs to have clear lines of responsibility for crisis management between them, school boards, umbrella organisations and language communities. School principals and teachers could benefit from pedagogical and logistical support from their respective authorities, which may again need to step up to ensure a sense of coherence and equity across schools in times of crisis.

Despite initial challenges, continuity was well managed overall, in part thanks to a boost of digitalisation

Retrospectively, reopening schools and keeping them open was challenging for all education actors, but proved to be possible and well executed overall. It required a united front from all three communities to make the case for school reopening.

While the health protocols that made reopening possible were complex and constraining for school staff (as well as for parents and students), they could be implemented partly thanks to the common colour-coded protocols that facilitated communication across the country, and partly thanks to the flexibility granted to schools and communities to adapt rules locally. Indeed, the time lags between the announcement and implementation of protocol changes were often very short, but schools did make it work – although at the cost of staff overworking. A similar pattern was observed in neighbouring countries, where schools were also kept open as much as possible during the crisis, at the cost of constantly evolving, long-lasting health protocols.

In the Belgian context, education stakeholders thought it key to keep schools open as much as possible, with strict protocols to limit the propagation of the virus and avoid full closures. This ensured a level of education continuity, even with reduced ambitions. Many actors contributed to education continuity so learners from all communities could have access to learning resources. Overall, the traditional non-interference of governmental authorities and umbrella organisations with teaching and learning practices continued as pointed out in the above sections – while school principals and teachers should have received more support to undertake their additional responsibilities – at least for the duration of the crisis. This may be due to the lack of habit, skills and staff in these umbrella organisations; or to a lack of appetite for top-down practices among school-level actors.

Among all stakeholders, the crisis disruption, as well as the swift pivot towards remote and hybrid learning that it imposed, led to a huge boost of digital competencies and digitalisation. Digital hardware and software infrastructures were expanded across communities, with laptops provided to thousands of students, investments in broadband connectivity and Wi-Fi (e.g. “Digisprong” action plan), and the acquisition or development of multiple digital tools and resources for system and school management, as well as for teaching and learning purposes. Paradoxically, it may have been too fast of a change in certain schools that lacked sufficient material and training, or where there was a mismatch between needs and functionalities of the tools provided. These lacks should have been addressed as soon as possible to avoid the phenomenon known as “technological backlash” among a few stakeholders, that occurs when rapid and forced transition to new technology causes frustration, resistance, and negative user experiences.

Nevertheless, available evidence suggests that, for the most part, digital teaching and learning practices were not conserved beyond the COVID-19 crisis. Laptops were provided, IT officers were introduced (e.g. in secondary schools in the German-speaking Community), and the use of digital administration tools (e.g. Skolengo), learning management systems, or digital tools such as Microsoft Teams largely progressed; but teaching and learning practices have not necessarily been transformed. Digital infrastructure is still lagging behind in many schools, and teachers were not provided laptops as many students were. Beyond digitalisation, educational actors acknowledged that the collaboration with their peers had increased during the crisis, within and across schools, in particular with schools from their educational network.

Broad reforms initiated before 2020 should now continue, especially to address teacher shortages. New reforms and action plans around digital education, such as “Digisprong” in the Flemish Community, or “Vision 2040” in the German-speaking Community, as well as the 2018 “Stratégie numérique pour l’éducation” in the French Community, should be sustained.

In case of future crises, Belgium will be able to build on its experience during the COVID-19 crisis to design strategies that help minimise the number of school closure days. This may require strict and evolving health protocols in schools, which must be socialised with the population and co-ordinated across communities. In the same way, the education sector should also aim at sustaining the investments in digital tools and resources, which teachers and students had to familiarise with during the hybrid arrangements. However, should a future crisis occur, Belgium will need to seek as well to ensure that education continuity is not permitted at the cost of overwork and stress for school staff and families. Educational authorities should continue to pay attention to all actors’ well-being concerns and not lose sight of the logistical and pedagogical support they need to navigate the crisis even after schools reopen.

5.3.3. Gaps in the monitoring and information infrastructure have hindered the impact assessment of the schooling disruptions on student outcomes

There is little evidence about students’ performance in Belgium and their experiences during the pandemic

Educational stakeholders such as principals, teachers, parents and students largely feel that student learning levels were adversely affected by the disruptions caused by the pandemic. In particular, stakeholders fear that critical foundational concepts and skills may not have been adequately covered or taken seriously by students during remote and hybrid learning. In addition, evidence collected by the OECD suggests that stakeholders have concerns about the well-being of students, with reports of increased stress and anxiety related to the challenges of adapting to new learning environments during distance learning periods, as well as long-lasting effects on students’ attitudes and behaviours since they returned to in-person schooling. As was the case in other OECD countries, many fear that the lack of socialisation would have a negative impact on students’ mental health. More than half of school principals reported that they felt a decrease in students’ academic performance and in their engagement with learning (Figure ‎5.4)5. A less important proportion (around one-third of the respondents) considered that the academic gaps among students had increased after two years of school disruption. A similar proportion felt that the COVID-19 crisis had detrimental impacts on students’ well-being.

Figure ‎5.4. School principals’ impressions of progress after two years of school disruption

Additional qualitative evidence collected by the OECD points to more positive perceptions of the period analysed. Some teachers reported that they could make more progress with their students than usual when the extra-curricular activities were suspended. Other stakeholders, including teachers and parents, felt that their students or children may have gained new skills during the remote and hybrid learning periods, notably in terms of autonomy, collaboration with peers, and solidarity. However, as noted for other education systems in previous analyses by the OECD, it is important to note that this progress may have been easier in some cases than for others, such as in contexts where at least a majority of the students in a class had all the necessary resources at home to receive instruction, or for students already with better performance and more developed metacognitive skills (OECD, 2020[3]) (Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021[1]). Across compared countries, results show that the psychological well-being of most children did not decline to any great extent during lockdown compared to the situation prior to lockdown (Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021[1]).

Regarding students’ learning progress during school closures compared to progress in “normal” conditions, there is limited and conflicting evidence from standardised assessments. The quality of the data varies somewhat, and the differences observed between the performance of students tested in 2020 or in early 2021, with students in the same year of school in year prior to 2020, range from small increases to large falls. In 2022, a study conducted in the Flemish Community found that students of the 2020 cohort experienced significant learning losses in three out of five tested subjects, with a decrease in school averages of mathematics scores of 0.17 standard deviations and Dutch scores (reading, writing, language) of 0.19 standard deviations as compared to previous cohorts (Maldonado and De Witte, 2021[22]). More research is needed to assess whether these are long-lasting effects, or if recovery is observed in the following years. At the very least, the available evidence suggests that it should not be automatically assumed that the school closures of March-June 2020 had a large negative impact on student progress and achievement.

In Belgium, thoroughly assessing the extent to which the pandemic had an impact on educational results proves to be a challenging task, as there is no longitudinal standardised evaluation system, either at the federal or at the community level (see section below). Unlike most OECD countries that regularly conduct standardised assessments at the national or central level, Belgium’s three language communities rely primarily on teacher assessments, school-based evaluations, and continuous formative assessments to gauge student progress (OECD, 2023[11]). While these methods are valuable, they lack the uniformity necessary for generating nationwide data on student performance; and they do not authorise comparisons over time. In the absence of longitudinal system-wide standardised evaluations in the three language-communities, only some ancillary or indirect evidence can be collected and analysed to assess the impacts of the two-year sanitary crisis on student performance and experience.

In the French Community, an interesting source of evidence on student performance comes from the end-of-cycle exam. However, the end-of-primary (CEB) and secondary education (CE1D and CESS) exams were cancelled in 2020. This meant that education actors were left with no pedagogical objectives, beyond strengthening learning on the “essential” subjects. Exams were reintroduced in the 2020/21 school year, with students taking the exact same exams their peers would have taken the year before, had the exam not been cancelled. Interestingly, success rates to the 2021 exam were good and consistent with the results observed the years before.8 This suggests that, at least as far as those specific 2021 cohorts of students are concerned, the learning disruption that occurred over the 2019/20 school year, added to those that occurred over the 2020/21 school year – which was less important because then in-person class time was prioritised over those of non-certifying grades’ students – had no observable impacts on student performance as assessed by this particular final exam.

To cope with the absence of standardised assessment of student achievement over time, the communities conducted ad hoc surveys, which were non-representative of the school population, and not comparable with other past surveys. Yet, these still provided authorities with some information on learners’ experiences during the crisis. Belgian universities, as well as teacher or student associations, would typically put those surveys together. For instance, the ministry of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation partnered with the universities of Liège and Louvain to administer a survey on student well-being during the crisis;9 and the “Comité des Élèves Francophones” (CEF, or “Francophone Student Committee”) conducted 8 polls to assess the experience of students during the crisis.10 In the Flemish Community, the Flemish Association of Pupils, as well as the three Flemish Parents Associations, also conducted online polls on student well-being and on the experience of parents during the pandemic, whose results were discussed with the ministry.11 In the German-speaking Community, the Kaleido agency undertook an assessment of the impact of the crisis on student psychosocial outcomes.12 Those ad hoc surveys on student well-being and mental health should be cross-validated with clinical observations measured by health authorities, including evidence on the number of violence at home, depressive cases, mental or food disorders, or suicide attempts (see Chapter 4 on Health).

Finally, other studies looked at a series of data collected before, during and after the COVID-19 crisis, to collect quantitative information on students (although not directly on their academic achievements) and help guide policy responses. Such data included student attendance, the number of students asked to repeat a year, and the number of those home-schooled. For instance, in the French Community, the “Indicateurs de l’Enseignement” annual report shows that between the 2019/20 and 2021/2022 school years the proportion of students repeating a year has remained almost stable in primary education (from 2.9% in 2019/20 to 2.4% 2020/21 and back to 2.8% in 2021/22) but sharply dropped in secondary education (from 13.7% to 6.2%, and then back at 10.6%). The number of home-schooled students increased by 55% between 2019/20 and 2021/22, although still representing only 0.44% of children overall). In the Flemish Community, a “Corona Monitor” report was specifically put in place to assess the shifts in study choices and learning experiences that occurred during the crisis.13 Similarly to the French Community, the proportion of students repeating a year dropped in 2020/21 and returned to pre-crisis levels in 2021/22; and the number of home-schooled students largely increased (for instance it almost doubled in primary education, from 480 to 917 children) while representing a very marginal proportion of the student population. The information systems used in the Flemish Community (Discimus and Edison), as well as the digital student register used in the French Community (SIEL and Stat Elèves), facilitated the identification of student absences and school dropouts. Data collected in the French Community show that the number of student dropouts has remained stable in primary education (around 1.5%); but that it has slightly increased in secondary education, from 16.5% in 2019/20 to 17.3% in 2021/21 – perhaps partly due to the increase in home-schooling.8

The lack of evidence on student outcomes highlights a lack of system-wide standardised student assessments in all three communities, prior to the pandemic – and thus during the pandemic. Furthermore, the context of crisis left no time to design and implement such assessments. In contrast, in countries such as France, teachers and policymakers were able to use data from pre-existing national assessments and assessments developed during the pandemic to inform decision making (see Box ‎5.4). Government actors in the three communities acknowledge that organising national standardised assessments cannot be a federal responsibility, as curriculum requirements (and education policies in general) differ across the three communities.

Further to evidence on outcomes, there was no strong political effort to document parents', teachers' or learners' experience during the pandemic, even during the school closures (as was the case in France or Germany). Among the reasons invoked was that stakeholders already had too much extra work to be asked to answer questionnaires, but this was arguably the case in other countries too. Here again, there is no federal responsibility to collect such information, as illustrated by the fact that the federal government does not collect information about the educational experience of Belgians in their household surveys – contrary to Germany for instance, where the recent household survey included a few questions on the COVID-19 experience and people’s satisfaction with the government measures (Jaschke et al., 2023[23]).

Box ‎5.4. International experiences in generating evidence on the impact of the pandemic

Assessing the impact of school closures on learners emerged as a key priority for education systems when many began to reopen schools in 2020. Common strategies included using data from existing national assessments, or designing new diagnostic assessments, or using surveys to capture stakeholders’ broader experiences.

Comparing results between cohorts from existing national assessments and conducting new diagnostic assessments on student learning and well-being

Teachers and policymakers in France benefitted from a range of data on how lockdowns affected student performance. At the classroom level, primary teachers used results from national benchmarking assessments completed in September 2020 and January 2021 to identify students whose learning gaps required immediate attention and those who required further monitoring. At the system level, the Ministry of National Education and Youth compared the results from the 2020 national assessments with those of 2018 and 2019 to estimate the impact of school closures on student performance, with attention to factors such as socio-economic status, gender, and geographical location. These data were then complemented by sample-based monitoring of students in the first two years of primary school over a period of two years.

The practice of comparing results from national assessments between cohorts affected by COVID-19 and previous years was also used in Italy. Like the national assessments in France, these tests are designed to help teachers target their practice to students’ needs and to support school improvement. School principals have access to the disaggregated results for their school, and schools receive training on how to use the data. The results from 2021 were compared to those of students in the same grade in 2019, with a report highlighting the potential impact of school closures on different population groups and regions.

Other examples of new diagnostic assessments used to inform remedial efforts come from New South Wales (Australia) and Chile. In New South Wales, schools used Check-in Assessments to identify students that would participate in the COVID Intensive Learning Support Programme. These assessments also provide teachers with rapid feedback and are accompanied with training and guidance on using the results. Chile’s Comprehensive Assessment of Learning enabled schools to assess students’ social emotional state and skills as well as their learning in reading and mathematics. Schools could use the assessments when they chose and received results immediately. Chile’s Education Quality Agency mentored management teams remotely to support implementation.

Collecting data on the broader experiences of teaching professionals, learners, and families

France, the United States and the United Kingdom also provide relevant examples of collecting of data on the broader experiences of education actors. France is also one of few countries with available data on the views of students, teachers, and school principals regarding home-based schooling in 2020. These data draw on questionnaires administered alongside national and sample-based assessments. France also added questions about students’ and families’ experiences of the first lockdown to the 2020 round of a longitudinal study involving 15 000 students that began in 2011. The United States also drew on an existing population sample to understand the challenges parents of young children faced during school closures and to gather their views on the quality of distance learning. The Gallup Panel, established in 2004, uses probability-based, random sampling methods to get a representative picture of the views of US adults. In May 2020, Gallup administered a survey to a random sample of 1 232 members of the Gallup panel whose children’s schooling was impacted by closures. In the United Kingdom, a fortnightly sample survey was administered on a weekly basis from March 2020 to understand how COVID-19 was affecting their lives, with questions on parents’ experiences of home schooling.

Sources: OECD (2021[4]), Education Policy Outlook 2021: Shaping Responsive and Resilient Education in a Changing World, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/75e40a16-en; Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin (2021[1]), Schooling During a Pandemic: The Experience and Outcomes of Schoolchildren During the First Round of COVID-19 Lockdowns, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1c78681e-en; OECD (2023[24]), “Education Policy Outlook in Australia”, OECD Education Policy Perspectives, No. 67, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ce7a0965-en.

Developing education information infrastructures is an urgent topic for Belgium’s reflection in the future

The absence of comparable and quantitative evidence on student performance, their experience throughout the crisis, and their well-being – as well as that of teachers and school staff – hinders a proper data-driven assessment of the impacts of the crisis. Evidence collected by the OECD indicates that actors perceive negative impacts on student performance, a decrease in their engagement with their learning, and – above all – a fear that the school disruptions have negatively affected many students’ mental health and well-being. Furthermore, in the French and German-speaking Communities, education agencies lacked the information systems and digital tools that facilitated the contact tracing in the Flemish Community, as well as the reporting of information on students and schools.

This highlights the need for Belgium authorities to strengthen the monitoring and information infrastructure to help guide policymaking and facilitate administrative processes. Throughout the pandemic, education policymaking has certainly been expert-based, as demonstrated by the multiple expert consultations that helped take crisis decisions; but it has not been necessarily evidence-based. Collecting evidence and data were still seen as a means to provide statistics, rather than key, systematically collected information, that can drive action and decision making. In times of crisis, collecting such information could have helped to better spend scarce resources, for instance on the priority targets of interventions put in place to mitigate any potential learning losses or negative impacts on mental health. For example, the French Community were able to make use of existing information on the socioeconomic index of schools to allocate additional support in the period of school closures. Ongoing data collection during the crisis period could have helped all three language communities better target their resources in line with evolving needs. If setting up such a monitoring and information infrastructure in education were not to be a federal responsibility, the federal government could still have integrated questions that relate to the COVID-19 experiences in education into one of the household surveys conducted by StatBel; for instance, the one monitoring Belgians’ living conditions.

At the same time, some important efforts have already been taking place in this direction, as highlighted in the French and Flemish Communities’ most recent digital education strategies (respectively “Stratégie numérique pour l’éducation” and “Digisprong”). The Flemish Community has recently engaged in the implementation of a digital standardised student assessment, which will be administered every year on a census basis in Dutch and mathematics. Similarly, the German-speaking Community is developing a monitoring system as part of its broader “Vision 2040” strategy, which will include the development of a student information system. In the meantime, the three communities continue to take part in large-scale international assessments such as PISA. Outcomes from PISA to be published in December 2023 will provide important information to the systems of progress made and the state of possible learning gaps after the pandemic.

The capacity to collect comparable and quantitative evidence on student performance and their well-being – as well as that of teachers and school staff – is important to be able to conduct a proper data-driven assessment of the impacts of any crisis and of the mitigation or adaptation measures implemented by governments. Moreover, strengthening the monitoring and information infrastructure (and the interoperability of the digital ecosystem) as well as the quality of the data that reaches education stakeholders can help guide evidence-based (rather than, or in synergy with, expert-based) policymaking and facilitate administrative processes. In future events, for instance, this could help the teams in charge of contact tracing.

5.4. How different actors co-ordinated during the health crisis

This section analyses how different actors in the three communities co-ordinated during the different stages of the pandemic. It first analyses co-ordination of education as a sector, including with respect to other sectors. Then, it looks more specifically at co-ordination aspects within the education sector. It shows that a convergence of strategic priorities among the communities of keeping the schools open. The section also refers to challenges met for its operationalisation, in a context of a wide array of stakeholders playing a role in the governance of schools.

5.4.1. Education continuity and keeping schools safely open stood out as the first strategic priority for the three communities, with a need to balance physical and mental health

Collaboration between the political leadership of the Belgian governmental entities (federal government, regions and language communities) primarily takes place through meetings of the Concertation Committees (CC) (see Chapters 1 and 3 for more information on the CC). This forum brings together heads of the executives of each of these entities (Prime Minister and Minister-Presidents) to prevent or resolve any potential conflicts of interest or issues of competence between the different authorities within the federal state.

In the first few months of the COVID-19 crisis, the National Security Council became the primary forum for consultation between the federal and federated governments. From October 2020, this specific co-ordination role was adopted as part of the responsibilities of the CC, with the Minister-Presidents representing their education ministers and the interests of their respective systems.

The education sector’s capacity to stand as a united front played an important role in reopening schools

Exchanges with actors at different levels of the respective education systems suggest that the right of students to learning remained the key priority throughout the early stages of the pandemic, albeit with a need to balance this consideration with that of protecting the health of the general population. As expressed by the three communities, this priority was operationalised through aspects such as supervising the professionals affected, keeping in touch with families, reducing contamination, informing, or reducing negative impacts on children and youth in general (Office de la Naissance et de l’Enfance, ONE, French Community). In the German-speaking Community, shared priorities also referred to aspects such as continuity of pay, providing equipment, managing the possible cancellation of the annual school trip, implementing cleaning guides, facilitating CO2 respiratory devices, or sharing self-test kits.

The need to co-ordinate responses during an unprecedented crisis enhanced collaboration across the three language communities. The three education ministers quickly established communication channels in the early phases of the pandemic and maintained a shared goal of ensuring young peoples’ right to education and minimising school closures. At the operational level, the language communities remained very much independent, although education ministers and their cabinets maintained regular contact from the initial period of school closures until the end of the 2021/22 academic year. This contact was primarily focused on harmonising health protocols across the three education systems at the request of the federal government (e.g. online, offline, or hybrid education delivery), as well as on aspects related to implementation at the school level. For example, the Flemish Community shared the safety scripts developed for schools with the other communities. The ministers convened before or after the CC meetings, where national measures were determined, often involving health experts for advice. They would also communicate through their cabinets on a regular basis between these meetings.

Education stakeholders from different groups reported that the ministers’ shared vision helped to ensure that the potential impact of school closures on student learning and well-being was a key consideration in discussions on whether schools should remain open. Many credited the education ministers with the fact that Belgium had among the lowest rates of school closures due to COVID-19 among European countries, although it should be noted that keeping schools open was also one of the three priorities identified by the Federal Government that came into power in October 2020. The collaboration between education ministers also reduced confusion among students and parents, since the health protocols were broadly consistent across the three communities.

Education was a key consideration in political decision making, but challenges arose in implementing decisions at the school level

Education remained a recurrent topic in CC meetings throughout the early stages of the pandemic, also receiving great attention from the press. This helped to ensure that student learning and well-being remained a priority and that the education systems received adequate funding and political support to ensure education continuity. However, while schools remained central in public debate, this did not necessarily mean that it was students who were at the centre of the conversation across sectors, or that decisions were always driven by their needs. For example, experts from the Group of Experts in Charge of the Exit Strategy (GEES), and the national paediatric task force advised against school closures in March 2020. At this stage, they argued that there was a lack of conclusive evidence that COVID-19 was damaging to children and young people’s physical health and warned of the potential impact of school closures on student learning and well-being.

More broadly, there was an apparent tension between the desire to keep schools open in the interests of student learning and well-being and the need to protect public health by containing the COVID-19 virus as much as possible. This tension was subject to considerable debate in Belgium, including among the scientific and medical community. While the paediatricians advocated strongly for school opening – with some 90 child health experts writing an open letter calling for a return to face-to-face learning for September 2020 – epidemiologists and those working on adult health were not of the same view.14

This tension was exacerbated by an uncertainty that prevailed in public debate, particularly when schools first reopened from May 2020, on the question of whether schools where either motors or mirrors of the pandemic. If schools were the motors of contagion (i.e. places and processes that caused it), they would need to be subject to stricter sanitary guidelines compared to other places of social interactions. However, if schools turned out to be mirrors (i.e. only being a reflection of the evolution of the pandemic within the wider population), then the stricter sanitary constraints should apply first and foremost to other sectors. This would call into question whether the costs in terms of lost learning and negative impacts on student well-being were justified.

During the period where crisis management was governed within the CC, its representatives had to seek a balance between adopting a crisis management strategy that applied across all sectors of public life, the education ministers’ request for autonomy in shaping their own response, and ensuring that measures could be easily implemented. For example, while the federal government and COVID Commissariat sought to implement a ventilation strategy based on monitoring and risk management planning, such a strategy posed budgetary and logistical challenges to the education systems. Informal exchanges between the education ministers and the experts associated with the COVID Commissioner that took place in the margins of the CC played an important role in conciliating such tensions.

However, as the pandemic continued, the schools were publicly discovered as more than places where learning happens. Education actors gained increased awareness that education and care institutions are also important venues where other processes of great importance take place for the learner and the community at large; where students socialise and receive diverse types of support.

Another challenge related to the proportionality of health measures adopted when schools were open and the timeframe in which actors had to implement them. Education stakeholders reported that the climate of concern that schools were a motor of transmission meant that the ministers had to agree to strict health protocols within schools in discussions with the federal government to achieve their objectives of keeping them open. Some education actors found these protocols burdensome and felt that schools were unfairly ‘blamed’ for the transmission of the virus, hence paying the price through protocols that were stricter than in other sectors.

Despite efforts to promptly communicate key decisions made in CC meetings to actors within the education systems, there was a delay between these meetings, the discussions between the three education ministers, and consultations with actors involved in implementation posed challenges. Key education actors were informed of the decisions made at higher levels almost simultaneously as the general public, which hindered their capacity to anticipate or to adapt the decisions made to the school context. Actors in other sectors experienced similar challenges, pointing to a need to strengthen how operational needs were considered in political decision making (see Chapter 3).

Moving forward, the three language communities can undertake two key types of efforts that help them formulate and operationalise their strategic priorities more effectively in case of crisis. On the more strategic vision side, in future crises, it will be important for policymakers to develop a broader sense of what learners need to adapt to adverse circumstances and to identify steps to achieve this vision (i.e. what does it mean to be a resilient learner in the context of each language community?). This vision of ‘resilient learner’ could be defined at community level (to understand specificities depending on the cultural contexts of each community), or at national level, to develop an encompassing view. Either way, this vision should include aspects related to learning, but also metacognitive competencies (e.g. agency and co-agency), mental well-being, and even physical well-being (e.g. in terms of security, food security, or specific aids) (OECD, 2021[4]). It should also account for the specific needs of the most vulnerable learners including those with special educational needs (SEN) and those facing social or economic disadvantage. Involving learners and other relevant stakeholders such as parents and education professionals in setting out a vision for learner resilience will help to ensure learners remain at the centre of decision making. Box ‎5.5 provides an example of how the OECD has defined resilient learners in its Framework for Responsiveness and Resilience in Education Policy, developed during 2020-21.

Box ‎5.5. Defining and nurturing learner resilience

Insights from the Framework for Responsiveness and Resilience in Education Policy

The OECD developed the Framework for Responsiveness and Resilience in Education Policy during 2020 and 2021 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and to support countries to bring together the urgent and the importance in education policy. This framework was developed in collaboration with over 40 education systems, including the three communities of Belgium. It draws on international evidence to provide an actionable definition of resilient learners, as well as resilient broader learning environments and resilient education systems.

Infographic ‎5.1. How policy components of responsiveness can also drive learners’ resilience

These definitions are the goals of the framework (Why?) and are underpinned by policy components of responsiveness which set out priority areas for policymakers (What?). Policy pointers (How?) illustrate how they can apply these components to strengthen resilience.

Why nurture resilient learners? Resilient learners can adapt to various tasks and environments. They have the agency to identify and capitalise on opportunities to reach their potential provided by the education system and create their own. They can also move between different learning tasks and environments (e.g. school, home, online). All resilient learners can eventually reach their potential regardless of background, interests or needs.
What policy components of responsiveness can nurture resilient learners? Policymakers can nurture resilient learners by empowering them to confidently navigate their worlds while providing adaptive pedagogies for all, and sustained supports for the most vulnerable.
How to apply these components so they translate into resilience? Policymakers should support approaches that foster learners’ agency and co-agency, encourage learners’ engagement and voice, and nurture positive climates and interactions for learning. They should also make personalised and flexible learning available to all learners, while strengthening targeted supports for vulnerable learners. This may be through multidimensional support that addresses different types of disadvantage.

Source: OECD (2021[4]), Education Policy Outlook 2021: Shaping Responsive and Resilient Education in a Changing World, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/75e40a16-en.

On the operational side, it will be important for the three language communities to systematise the crisis management structures established during the COVID-19 pandemic. These bodies would develop protocols outlining overarching principles and priorities to be signalled in a future crisis and identifying actors in charge of specific actions.

Building on the strengths of political collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic, the political leadership of the three education systems should consider formalising a common co-ordination structure for the education sector in contexts of crisis. This could be organised along the lines of Belgium’s Interministerial Conference on Public Health. Furthermore, other international experiences could serve as inspiration to Belgium. In Germany, ministers responsible for education and schooling, higher education and research come together through the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs to work collaboratively on policy issues affecting all 16 land with the aim of developing a common vision and providing representation for common interests (Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs, Germany, n.d.[25]). Collaboration between education ministers during the pandemic served similar functions. Examples of similar fora in other federated countries include Switzerland’s Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education and Canada’s Council of Ministers of Education (Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education,, n.d.[26]; Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, n.d.[27]).

At the very least, this group should work together with the National Crisis Centre (NCCN) to establish protocols for future crisis management and review them at regular intervals to assess their relevance considering the current context and information from any forecasting exercises. In the event of future crisis, the group would also advise the Minister-Presidents on emergency protocols for education and their implementation at the school level in advance of political decision making in the CC. This would also strengthen the operational level of decision making within Belgium’s crisis management arrangements and enable the leaders of the education system to provide time-sensitive input and feedback on potential measures to be implemented, notably their implications for students, families and education professionals (see also Chapter 3). To ensure continuity between political administrations, both intra and inter-community groups should include senior civil servants alongside elected officials.

5.4.2. The communities largely consulted local educational stakeholders, although this approach posed challenges in ensuring the timely communication of decisions

Throughout the pandemic, political leaders and officials in all three language communities held regular meetings with a range of stakeholder groups to consult them on health protocols and matters concerning student learning and well-being. These meetings were often organised before or after a CC meeting, to prepare or implement the decisions taken at this forum. In the Flemish and French Communities these consultation meetings involved stakeholder representatives such as school board umbrella organisations, teacher trade unions, and, in the Flemish case, school students’ associations. Given the smaller size of the German-speaking Community, the Ministry and political leadership had greater scope for direct communication with stakeholders. For example, the cabinet of the Minister of Education would meet directly with all school leaders following a CC meeting to discuss the implementation of measures. However, the operationalisation of the CC decisions required mobilising a large array of actors and mechanisms that varied given the contexts of the three education systems (see Figure ‎5.5, Figure ‎5.6 and Figure ‎5.7). Alongside more informal exchanges, these meetings facilitated communication and feedback between these key decision makers in the communities and educational actors on the ground.

Figure ‎5.5. Governance arrangements in the Flemish Community to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic

Figure ‎5.6. Governance arrangements in the French Community to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic

Figure ‎5.7. Governance arrangements in the German-speaking Community to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic

Alongside these consultation mechanisms with stakeholder representatives, the language communities took steps to communicate directly with school leaders, teachers, students and families. In the French Community, the Administration générale de l’Enseignement produced circulars to share key information on health and education continuity protocols with schools and governing boards. The weekly Schooldirect newsletter was the main channel for communication with schools and governing boards in the Flemish Community. The Department of Education and Training also produced animated videos to communicate with students and parents on health protocols.

The decision to consult widely with various stakeholders and maintain regular contact with them appears to have had several positive outcomes. This approach fostered a sense of ownership among those involved concerning critical pandemic measures. For example, evidence collected by the OECD shows that several stakeholders expressed their support for the goal of minimising school closures. This included teachers, school leaders, students and families. Many saw this as a strength of the Belgian response in comparison to the countries and credited the three education ministers with achieving this goal. Those who participated in the different consultation forums conducted by the education sector were positive about their role in contributing to decision-making processes, even if some felt their input was not always reflected in the final decision. Moreover, even those who were not directly involved in these forums reported having positive relationships with political leaders who actively sought their opinions and input.

Similarly to the co-ordination between community governments, the co-ordination between stakeholders within each community during the pandemic has laid the foundation for future co-ordination. Officials in the Flemish Community reported that they used the forum established during COVID-19 to consult on the crisis response to the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.

One significant challenge encountered in all three language communities, however, was the need to ensure that crucial decisions were communicated promptly to school leaders, teachers, students, and families. This challenge not only made some education professionals feel excluded from the decision-making processes but also placed school leaders in a difficult position. They had to respond to inquiries from school staff, students and parents before receiving official instructions on how to implement the announced measures. Another source of frustration was that school leadership teams sometimes received information about health protocols late in the day and had to implement them for the next morning. This meant staff had to remain late at school to interpret and apply the protocols.

According to available evidence from the survey completed by school leaders, the majority of those from the German-speaking Community who responded to the relevant item reported that they were either ‘very satisfied’ (13%) or ‘satisfied’ (56%) with the timeliness of crisis communication from the Community in the periods when schools were open. In contrast, in the Flemish Community, only 26% of the school leaders who responded to this item expressed being 'satisfied' with the timeliness of communications during this period, while 1% reported being ‘very satisfied’. In the French Community, 6% of school leaders reported being ‘very satisfied’, while 37% reported being ‘satisfied’ (see Figure ‎5.8).⁵ The timelines for implementation were a challenge for actors in other sectors in Belgium during the crisis (see Chapter 3).

Figure ‎5.8. The timeliness of crisis communications was a challenge for some school leaders

Some school principals' levels of satisfaction with crisis communication from their community when schools were open

For the education sector, the delays in communication seemed to emerge from the fact that many people were involved in the decision-making process and that it often took a long time to reach a consensus In the Flemish and the French Communities, for example, the consultations with stakeholders that took place following a CC meeting typically involved 50 participants and sometimes lasted several hours and concluded late at night. Only after this process could officials communicate decisions to school leaders. In the German-speaking Community, officials frequently held separate meetings with different stakeholder groups (e.g. school leaders, medical experts) before or after CC meetings, which consumed additional time. In some instances, these challenges were exacerbated by the fact that politicians shared health protocol information with the media before officials could communicate it to those responsible for implementation. Some officials felt there was a need to manage stakeholders' expectations regarding their level of involvement in decision making, as consulting with a large number of individuals and organisations was not always practical.

Despite a consensus on prioritising children and young people in decision making, mechanisms for direct communication with and feedback from them were also limited. The channels for communicating with children and young people about COVID-19 and how it may affect them appear to have been insufficient, with the resources produced for this purpose having low visibility. The paediatric task force suggested holding regular press conferences for children, as implemented in countries such as Finland and Norway, but these were not adopted. In a similar vein, experts in the GEES felt that children and young people should have been represented in discussions with medical experts and politicians to provide feedback on how health protocols were affecting them.

In the Flemish Community, an innovative online party for children and young people, attended by about 3 000 guests, allowed interaction among students and facilitated the monitoring of student well-being through the chat function. Furthermore, student associations were represented in consultation processes in the Flemish Community. However, such student voice mechanisms were less evident in the French and German-speaking Communities. Although the leadership of the Committee of French-Speaking Students (Comité des élèves francophones CEF) had regular contact with the Minister of Education and her cabinet, they were not represented in the consultation forum with other stakeholders. Students and parents in the French Community felt there was a need to better involve children and young people in decision--making processes in the event of the future crisis. Some students said there was a lack of space for them to express concerns on the school climate before the pandemic, and that this challenge was exacerbated when containment measures meant they had limited access to school leaders. At the time of the review visit, the CEF was working with the government of the French Community to develop options for strengthening student representation mechanisms, offering an opportunity to address these concerns.

To address these challenges, each language community should establish protocols for consultation and communication with education stakeholders as part of future crisis preparedness planning. The forums established during the COVID-19 pandemic provide a useful starting point for this exercise. Protocols should clarify which actors should be involved in different decision-making forums and how decisions will be communicated to the broader population of stakeholders (e.g. school leaders, parents and carers). Given the inherent trade-off between making decisions quickly and including a wide range of actors, clarifying the purpose of meetings with stakeholders, and informing them how their feedback will inform decision making can reduce frustrations and manage expectations. Stakeholders should be made aware whether a meeting is for collective decision making, gathering feedback, or communicating decisions made elsewhere. Furthermore, decision makers within governments must explain why they consult with certain individuals or groups and not others.

Strengthening mechanisms for communicating directly with children and young people and ensuring their voices inform decision making should be a key priority in any future crisis. Student voice mechanisms must be therefore developed according to children and youth age range, in order to better understand their realities from a first-hand perspective. This includes as well ensuring representation of student representative organisations in crisis consultation forums established by the language communities. These organisations could also be invited to national-level discussions such as those that took place with medical experts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Including regular student surveys as part of crisis preparation planning for education will help to ensure that the views of the broader student population also inform decision making.

The need to improve communication with children and young people on the nature of any future crises and how they affect their education is common to the three language communities. In this regard, policymakers in Belgium can learn from the experiences of other countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Norway’s Prime Minister held two press conferences for children during school closures, while Finland’s Prime Minister held a virtual question and answer session for young people. Latvia’s Ministry of Education and Science conducted regular student surveys in the early stages of the pandemic and used the data to inform the development of guidelines and memoranda (OECD, 2021[4]). However, student voice mechanisms were more evident in some communities than others, meaning there is potential for peer learning. For example, a representative from the Flemish Pupils’ Association was involved in social dialogue meetings and advised on communications such as the weekly newsletter for school leaders.

5.4.3 School autonomy enabled teachers and school leaders to remain agile during the pandemic, although some would have benefited from additional support

In line with Belgium’s principle of freedom of education, the three language communities provided school governing boards with additional financial and human resources to ensure educational continuity and implement health measures but gave them significant autonomy in organising learning within agreed protocols. This support included funding for ICT upgrades, personal devices for students, and materials related to health protocols (e.g. personal protective equipment, hydroalcoholic gel, rapid antigen tests). In terms of human resources, the French Community financed extra teaching periods, offering schools the flexibility to create additional teaching, leadership, or support roles for academic, social, or psychological support. The combination of targeted resources and relative autonomy appears to have equipped teachers and school leaders to adapt quickly to changing health protocols throughout the different phases of the pandemic. For instance, several schools established new channels for communication and educational continuity within 48 hours of the announcement of school closures (e.g. email addresses for students or teachers, Microsoft Teams), taking advantage of the freedom to choose their preferred platforms or resources.

However, some stakeholders believed that teachers and school leaders would have benefitted from more support, guidance, or direction in certain areas given the context of crisis. While school leaders broadly accepted that providing detailed guidance on curriculum and pedagogy was not within the purview of the community governments, some found the guidance that they received from school board umbrella organisations and pedagogical advisors too general. Across the OECD countries and economies, this was a shared challenge for which education systems adapted some existing mechanisms during the pandemic, as shown in Box ‎5.6.

Box ‎5.6. Providing school leaders with evidence to inform decision making

England (United Kingdom) and the Netherlands are decentralised education systems where available tools aimed to support schools and school leaders in using resources for impact during the pandemic. In addition to providing schools with additional funding to implement activities focused on addressing learning losses particularly for the most vulnerable students when schools reopened in 2020 (e.g. after-school and school holiday programmes, one-to-one tutoring), both education systems provided evidence to support decision makers in using this funding effectively.

In England (United Kingdom) the Education Endowment Foundation published a COVID-19 support guide for schools highlighting evidence-based approaches for remediating learning losses and a quick guide to implementing catch-up programmes in the 2020-21 school year with supporting case studies. This independent charity works closely with the Department of Education and regularly publishes toolkits for schools showing the comparative cost, evidence strength, and demonstrated impact of different policy options and interventions.

To support schools in implementing its national Catch-up Programme the Netherlands’ Ministry of Education produced research summaries to inform programme design and concrete proposals on how to select students for intervention, prioritise learning goals and monitor students’ progress.

Sources: OECD (2020[3]), Lessons for Education from COVID-19: A Policy Maker’s Handbook for More Resilient Systems, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0a530888-en; OECD (2021[4]), Education Policy Outlook 2021: Shaping Responsive and Resilient Education in a Changing World, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/75e40a16-en.

The data from the survey completed by school leaders provide some insight on how they viewed their collaboration with different authorities during the pandemic. Across the three language communities, respondents generally expressed positive views regarding collaboration with their educational network or school board umbrella organisation. In the German-speaking Community, 80% of the 15 school leaders who responded to this item reported high satisfaction levels (either ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’) with their collaboration with their educational network or umbrella organisation. In the French Community, this satisfaction rate was 75% among 468 respondents, while in the Flemish Community, it reached 74% with 244 respondents. A similar proportion of school leaders in the German-speaking Community reported they were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with their collaboration with the community government regarding education continuity during school closures (73%) and regarding the implementation of health protocols during periods when schools were open (8%).

Respondents in the Flemish Community and French Community had less favourable views regarding their collaboration with their respective governments. In the Flemish Community, only 47% of 245 school leaders expressed satisfaction (either ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’) with their collaboration with the community government concerning education continuity during school closures. Similarly, 50% reported satisfaction with the collaboration regarding health protocols when schools were open. These levels of satisfaction were even lower in the French Community, with only 27% (out of 469 responses) expressing satisfaction with their collaboration with the community government regarding education continuity during school closures, and 35% (out of 472 responses) reporting satisfaction with the collaboration concerning health protocols when schools were open (see Figure ‎5.9).⁵

Figure ‎5.9. School leaders showed high levels of satisfaction with their collaboration with different actors during the pandemic

Some principals’ levels of satisfaction with their collaboration with the following stakeholders

Moreover, students, parents, and other stakeholders reported that the application of health protocols, as well as the quality of education and support provided to students during the pandemic, varied between teachers and schools. This points to the challenge of ensuring educational quality and consistency during a crisis within a very decentralised system like Belgium’s. For instance, teachers across Belgium differed in their use of digital tools, their expectations of students, and in whether they provided synchronous or asynchronous activities during periods of distance or hybrid learning. This created confusion among students and families, but also a sense that not all students had equal access to learning during the pandemic. Organisations representing the interests of teachers and students were especially vocal in arguing that governments should have been more directive in their instructions to schools and school boards during the COVID-19 pandemic, with some representatives seeming to question the value of school autonomy in a crisis of this nature. For instance, teacher trade unions expressed concerns for their members safety in cases where schools did not implement health protocols to their satisfaction.

The extent to which schools should retain their autonomy during crises remains a subject for internal debate for Belgium. The OECD sees value in clarifying which organisations are best placed to support schools, as well as ensure equity, quality, and accountability in the event of a future crisis. This should be based on an assessment of the current capacity of organisations who currently perform these roles, the views of the actors involved, and with respect to Belgium’s principle of freedom of education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the governments of the three communities, school boards, umbrella organisations, and school inspectorates were all involved in supporting schools and ensuring accountability to varying degrees. From April 2020, for example, the Flemish Education Inspectorate focused on supporting schools with pedagogy rather than monitoring and evaluation, offering assistance remotely or in person depending on health protocols. Inspectors were also in regular contact with the pedagogical guidance centres of the school board umbrella organisations, who identified schools who needed additional support. A similar system was in place in the German-speaking Community. However, it was not always clear to school-level actors which of these organisations held ultimate responsibility for different domains, leading to intended consequences. For example, some school leaders in the Flemish Community may have been reluctant to approach the inspectorate with questions about curriculum, fearing that this would affect the way the school was judged in monitoring processes.

Moving forward, it will be important to ensure that school boards and school leaders are aware of what is expected of them during a crisis and what support is available. Providing these actors with short summaries of the available evidence and examples of best practice will help them make the best use of their resources (see Box ‎5.5). Moreover, creating a clear distinction between monitoring and evaluation, and support for education delivery, including in times of crisis and for the longer term, could avoid some of the confusions or concerns that arose during the COVID-19 crisis.

5.5. Summary of recommendations

5.5.1. Ensure education continuity in times of crisis by prioritising keeping schools open and digital capacity

In future crises, keep schools open as much as possible as the main lever to ensure education continuity, while accompanying and supporting schools and teachers on the field and over time.
Identify the strengths and challenges of the current digital infrastructures in the three education systems and take appropriate policy actions.
Rethink how (parts of) the “school autonomy” paradigm should apply in times of crisis, as well as the division of responsibilities for the provision and management of digital infrastructure in schools.
Strengthen the country’s information and monitoring infrastructure for education processes and outcomes.

5.5.2. Approach communication and collaboration with education stakeholders strategically

Develop a common definition of a ‘resilient learner’ to inform strategic priorities, as well as the aims and rights for learners in case of a crisis.
Building on the experience of the pandemic, explore formalising a common co-ordination structure for education during crises.
Establish protocols for consultation and communication with education stakeholders to be used in the event of a crisis.
Strengthen mechanisms for communicating directly with children and young people during a crisis and ensuring their voices inform decision making.
Clarify the lines of responsibility for supporting schools to deliver quality education and ensuring accountability during a crisis.

References

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[8] Flemish Deparment of Education and Training (n.d.), Over het departement Onderwijs en Vorming [About the Department of Education and Training], https://onderwijs.vlaanderen.be/nl/over-onderwijs-en-vorming/over-het-departement-onderwijs-en-vorming-0 (accessed on 13 October 2023).

[22] Maldonado, J. and K. De Witte (2021), “The effect of school closures on standardised student test outcomes”, British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 48/1, pp. 49-94, https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3754.

[10] Ministry of the German-Speaking Community (n.d.), Die aktuelle Regierung der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft Belgiens [The current government of the German-speaking Community of Belgium], https://ostbelgienlive.be/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-218/8563_read-50493/ (accessed on 13 October 2023).

[11] OECD (2023), Education at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/e13bef63-en.

[24] OECD (2023), “Education policy outlook in Australia”, OECD Education Policy Perspectives, No. 67, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ce7a0965-en.

[18] OECD (2023), OECD Digital Education Outlook 2023: Towards an Effective Digital Education Ecosystem, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/c74f03de-en.

[19] OECD (2023), Survey of Belgian Primary and Secondary Schools’ experience during the COVID-19 crisis.

[2] OECD (2022), “COVID-19: The second year of the pandemic”, in Education at a Glance 2022: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a0a5a75a-en.

[16] OECD (2022), Education at a Glance 2022: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/3197152b-en.

[21] OECD (2022), Evaluation of Luxembourg’s COVID-19 Response: Learning from the Crisis to Increase Resilience, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/2c78c89f-en.

[4] OECD (2021), Education Policy Outlook 2021: Shaping Responsive and Resilient Education in a Changing World, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/75e40a16-en.

[5] OECD (2021), The State of Higher Education: One Year into the COVID-19 Pandemic, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/83c41957-en.

[20] OECD (2020), Education Policy Outlook: Portugal, OECD, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/education/policy-outlook/country-profile-Portugal-2020.pdf (accessed on 12 October 2023).

[3] OECD (2020), Lessons for Education from COVID-19: A Policy Maker’s Handbook for More Resilient Systems, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0a530888-en.

[14] OECD (2020), PISA 2018 Results (Volume V): Effective Policies, Successful Schools, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ca768d40-en.

[15] OECD (2019), PISA 2018 Results (Volume I): What Students Know and Can Do, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5f07c754-en.

[13] OECD (2019), PISA 2018 Results (Volume II): Where All Students Can Succeed, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/b5fd1b8f-en.

[17] OECD (2019), TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners, TALIS, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1d0bc92a-en.

[12] OECD (2018), Education Policy Outlook 2018: Putting Student Learning at the Centre, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264301528-en.

[7] OECD (2017), Education Policy Outlook: Belgium, OECD Publishing, https://www.oecd.org/education/Education-Policy-Outlook-Country-Profile-Belgium.pdf (accessed on 22 September 2023).

[25] Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs, Germany (n.d.), The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK), https://www.kmk.org/kmk/information-in-english/standing-conference.html (accessed on 25 October 2023).

[23] Strumann, C. (ed.) (2023), “Satisfaction with pandemic management and compliance with public health measures: Evidence from a German household survey on the COVID-19 crisis”, PLOS ONE, Vol. 18/2, p. e0281893, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281893.

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[1] Thorn, W. and S. Vincent-Lancrin (2021), Schooling During a Pandemic: The Experience and Outcomes of Schoolchildren During the First Round of COVID-19 Lockdowns, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1c78681e-en.

[6] UOE education database (2022), Enrolment by type of institution, https://doi.org/10.1787/edu-data-en (accessed on 13 October 2022).

Annex 5.A. Timeline of education delivery (14 May 2020 – 30 June 2022)

Period	General health context	School opening (general trends)
Phase 1 13 March – 14 May 2020	Start of the pandemic Increasing spread First wave of infections	National lockdown and suspension of classes and activities Remote teaching and learning
Phase 2 15 May – 30 June 2020	Reduction in infection rate	Gradual reopening of schools, beginning with grade levels and target groups identified by each community (e.g. students with SEN, those in the final year of education). Full school attendance towards the end of the academic year
Phase 3 1 September – 19 October 2020	Gradual increase in infections	Face-to-face learning with masks and social distancing (N.B. In the French Community, students under 12 years-old were not expected to wear masks)
Phase 4 20 October 2020 – 20 January 2021	High infection rates High levels of students quarantined Federal government declares code red 31 October 2021	Distance learning for some grade levels from 28 October 2020 The three communities extend school holidays in November 2020 Hybrid learning for students in secondary schools, with students attending present 50% of the time (grade levels vary across communities) from 12 November 2020 Social distancing and reduced class sizes for students in primary education
Phase 5 21 January – 28 March 2021	Infection rates stabilise, with a gradual increase from March 2021	Hybrid learning for students in secondary schools, with students attending face-to-face 50% of the time (grade levels vary across communities) Social distancing and reduced class sizes for students in primary education
Phase 6 29 March – 18 April 2021	High infection rates	Schools across Belgium close for a week from 29 March 2021 and reopen after school holidays
Phase 7 19 April – 2 December 2021	Reduction in infection rate	Gradual reintroduction of face-to-face learning Resumption of school trips and extracurricular activities
Phase 8 3 December 2021 – 7 January 2022	Increased infection rates leading to saturation of hospitals	Hybrid learning for students in secondary schools, with students attending face-to-face 50% of the time (grade levels vary across communities) Social distancing and reduced class sizes for students in primary education
Phase 9 8 January – 11 February 2022	Increase in cases with the arrival of the Omicron variant	Face-to-face learning with masks and social distancing
Phase 10 11 February – 30 June 2022	Gradual reduction in infection rates	Face-to-face learning with masks and social distancing

Note: The colour codes correspond to the evolution of infection rates and the respective trend in education delivery: Red – high infection rates; Amber – medium infection rates; Green – lower infection rates.

Source: Information provided by the three language communities in the OECD questionnaire.

Notes

← 1. National Security Council, circulaire 7508

← 2. EU GDPR: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection_en

← 3. For more information on e-classe, see: http://www.enseignement.be/public/docs/000000000006/000000017525_CJWDSBNP.PDF

← 4. Guidance from the German-speaking Community: https://www.medien-fachberatung.be/

← 5. Data based on responses to a survey answered by 951 primary and secondary schools across Belgium, out of the 6 608 schools invited to respond to this questionnaire (14.4% response rate). While the data is not representative of the overall Belgian education system, it provides a sense of the experience of some education actors across the three communities throughout the period analysed for this chapter.

← 6. http://enseignement.be/upload/circulaires/000000000003/FWB%20-%20Circulaire%207983%20(8238_20210223_125855).pdf

← 7. National Security Council, circulaires 7550 and 7587.

← 8. See “Les Indicateurs de l’Enseignement” 2021 & 2022.

← 9. http://www.enseignement.be/index.php?page=28274&navi=4601

← 10. https://www.lecef.org/actualites-podcasts/7-semaines-de-cours-en-periode-covid-le-bilan/

← 11. https://www.scholierenkoepel.be/artikels/scholieren-over-blended-learning?returnurl=artikels/categorie/kennisbank

← 12. https://www.kaleido-ostbelgien.be/uploads/media/Coronakrise_und_psychosoziale_Folgen_fuer_Kinder_und_Jugendliche_-_2020-02-04.pdf

← 13. See the “Corona Monitor” 2021 & 2022.

← 14. https://www.rtbf.be/article/coronavirus-en-belgique-la-task-force-pediatrique-demande-que-tous-les-enfants-retournent-a-l-ecole-normalement-10560054

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