Government asks savers to co-invest in 'Schools of Flanders'

The Government of Flanders is going to provide 27 new buildings for some 20,000 pupils as part of the 'Schools of Flanders' programme. This was announced on Thursday by minister of Education Ben Weyts (N-VA). The minister is counting on Flemish savers who can co-invest.

The 27 new schools will be the first 'Schools of Flanders', a new programme based on the DBFM formula (Design, Build, Finance, Maintain). These are public-private partnerships in which a private partner, in consultation with the school, takes care of the financing and is responsible for the construction. With Flemish support, the school boards then pay an availability fee for thirty years. Afterwards, they become the owners of the building.

Safe investment

What is new is that private individuals can also invest in the capital.This way, every Flemish citizen can become a shareholder of a school in his neighbourhood. However, they will only be able to invest once the construction risk of the new building has been reduced.

"This will be a safe investment that will pay off in more than one way", Weyts explains. "People now know where the first 'Schools of Flanders' will be built and can start thinking about whether or not they want to invest in these projects".

The 27 new projects are spread across Flanders and Brussels. They include primary schools, secondary schools, schools for special education, art academies and a boarding school. Together they represent an investment of more than 400 million euro.

ESA neutrality

To meet the great need for school infrastructure, the Government of Flanders has for some time been looking for alternative forms of financing. Those forms must respect the rules of the ESA (European System of Accounts) neutrality. This means that the debt ratio must be kept under control and that investments must be kept outside the budget. The legislative framework came into being with the decree of 7 July 2006 on school infrastructure catch-up.

In 2009, the first public-private partnership (PPP) in school construction, better known by its acronym DBFM, could be launched. At the end of November 2021, the Flemish minister of Education launched the first tender under the new DBFM formula 'Schools of Flanders'. On 10 July 2020, the Government of Flanders approved the Concept Note Master Plan School Building 2.0, in which this ambition was mentioned. The new DBFM formula, worth 1 billion euro, will be spread over three public contracts of equal size.

(AHU)

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