Commission supports Belgium (Flanders) in tackling drop-out of beginning teachers

In Flanders, only 87% of newly qualified teachers are still teaching after 5 years. Among those with the highest qualification levels, more than one in five drop out during that phase. This puts a strain on the education system and reinforces already existing teacher shortages. The Flemish Community of Belgium has recently made it compulsory for schools to offer induction to their newly qualified teachers. The purpose is to tackle teacher drop-out through improved early career support, better job security and more stable career prospects.

The European Commission is providing technical support to the Flemish authorities through the EU's Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP) to develop coherent support for beginning teachers and give guidance to its highly autonomous schools on how to set up such induction schemes. Launched today, the project will draw on expertise from across Europe and work with Flemish stakeholder organisations to jointly draw up system-wide guidelines and training plans for schools. The new tools will be piloted in a number of Flemish schools in the school year 2021/22.

This project for the Flemish Department of Education and Training will be implemented by European Schoolnet, a network of 31 education ministries, with the support of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Structural Reform Support.

The SRSP offers expertise to all EU countries for the design and implementation of growth-enhancing reforms. Since 2017, the programme has been supporting over 1000 reform projects in 27 Member States.