Education minister changes record-keeping rules to cut schools' admin burden
Flemish minister of Education Ben Weyts (N-VA) proposed a package of measures on Tuesday to reduce the administrative burden for teachers and schools. He is scrapping more than 100 articles in the education regulations and is aiming to create more clarity about which documents a school must keep for the education inspectorate and which are no longer necessary.
The planning and administrative aspects of education have long burdened school systems. Several previous education ministers have attempted to tackle this but have not succeeded. Weyts is trying to find measures to remove unnecessary administration.
Part of the measures includes removing more than 100 articles in the education regulations, which he believes are often outdated. In addition, some obligations for Pupil Guidance Centres will be removed, and a special deletion decree has been created to enable the deletion of excessive rules.
Removing planning burden
Schools keep many documents to be able to submit them to the education inspectorate during an inspection, but according to the Weyts, there are misunderstandings about this and schools often keep more documents than required. The Flemish government will now communicate more clearly about what is expected of schools and what is not.
"We are now tying up the fight against the planning burden, but this will be a long-term work," said Weyts. "Education regulations sometimes resemble a jungle full of paper tigers. Teachers should be busy with knowledge transfer and not with endless registration and reporting."
#FlandersNewsService | © BELGA PHOTO NICOLAS MAETERLINCK
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