Francophone Education Faces Third Round of Budget Cuts: Youngest Teachers to Lose Jobs

Belgium’s Francophone education system will begin the new school year on 24 August with a third round of budget cuts that union leaders say will affect between 6,000 and 7,000 teachers. According to VRT NWS, the youngest teachers are bearing the brunt of the measures, with many facing outright unemployment as schools are forced to reduce staff.

“The youngest teachers simply end up on the dole,” said Jorre De Witte, union secretary at the socialist education union CGSP Enseignement, in an interview with Radio 1. “Those with permanent appointments are reassigned to other schools, but the youngest teachers fall through the cracks.”

The Reforms at a Glance

The most significant measure requires secondary school teachers in the higher grades (4th, 5th, and 6th year) to teach 22 hours per week instead of 20, a 10 percent increase in classroom time without additional pay. As De Witte explained: “If you make all secondary teachers work 10 percent more, you also need 10 percent fewer teachers.”

According to union estimates, approximately 1,300 full-time equivalent jobs will be completely eliminated. “It naturally affects many more teachers, because not everyone loses a full job,” De Witte said. “Multiply that number easily by 5. Then you arrive at a good 6,000 to 7,000 teachers affected by this measure alone.”

The cuts are part of a broader savings plan by the French Community government, a coalition of the liberal MR and centrist Les Engagés parties, to save 700 million euros over five years, including 300 million from education. The French Community (Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, or FWB) faces a structural deficit of approximately 1.5 billion euros annually, spending about 15 billion euros against 13.5 billion in revenue. Education accounts for 8 billion euros of the FWB budget, with 85 percent going to teacher salaries.

Human Cost of the Cuts

Julie, a young teacher from Peruwelz who teaches Dutch and English at Institut Saint-Charles, is among those who lost all their hours. “I knew the cuts would have an impact on my working hours at school, but I didn’t see coming that I would simply lose all my hours,” she told RTBF. Instead of preparing lessons, she is now writing a CV.

Her school’s principal alone had to call 16 teachers to tell them they would lose hours. “For some it was all their hours,” the principal said. “Those were difficult phone calls.”

The human toll extends beyond job losses. The government will also reduce investment in school building renovation, approximately 50,000 children will lose their free school meals, and arts academies will become paid for children under 12 at roughly 100 euros per child. Enrollment fees for higher education will increase from 350 euros to 1,200 euros, a move that has sparked particular concern among students.

Escalating Protest Movement

The new cuts come after a year of escalating protest. In January, between 6,500 and 8,000 people marched in Brussels against the education policies. In April, 10,000 teachers protested. On June 4, a demonstration of approximately 3,000 people, mostly young people, turned violent at Brussels-Central station, with a fire truck attacked, fires started, and police deploying tear gas and water cannon. Protesters also entered the FWB parliament building, and ten people were arrested, as BRUZZ reported.

The FWB parliament approved the controversial savings plans on June 5, and on June 22, the SETCa-SEL union called for strike action at the start of the new school year. Schools have already filed strike notices for the first three days of the new term. “The resistance only keeps growing,” De Witte warned. “There are schools that have already filed a strike request for the first 3 days, so it will be a warm autumn, I fear.”

On July 8, hundreds of protesters gathered before the FWB parliament, where the Education Committee approved a measure to protect jobs for priority temporary teachers, effective from the start of the school year until December 2026. The protection measure affects nearly 700 full-time equivalents at a maximum cost of 16 million euros, as BRUZZ reported.

Teachers Speak Out

Sara Vanobbergen, a teacher of Dutch, history, and geography in Dutch immersion at Atheneum Vauban in Charleroi, described the situation in stark terms. “In these circumstances we cannot start up in September,” she told De Wereld Morgen. “There’s always money for weapons, rockets and F-35s, but not for education.”

She also highlighted the pedagogical damage: “A teacher of French gives five hours of lessons. With a full assignment, he has four classes of five hours. His working time is increased by two hours, but a French course doesn’t exist in blocks of two hours. Then you get classes that get two hours from one teacher, two hours from a second, and the fifth hour perhaps from a third teacher. That simply makes no sense.”

Christophe, a secondary school teacher from Flanders who attended the Brussels protest, warned that the issue transcends the language border. “What happens today in Wallonia can happen tomorrow in Flanders,” he told StampMedia. “Together we are stronger.”

A Minister Under Fire

Education Minister Valérie Glatigny (MR) has defended the reforms as necessary given the FWB’s dire financial situation. “Nobody ever said our teachers worked too little,” she told RTBF in January, while insisting there would be “no dry layoffs.” She has argued that the measure aligns higher-grade secondary teachers with their lower-grade colleagues, who already teach 22 hours.

Political journalist Alain Gerlache, in a profile of Glatigny published by VRT NWS, noted that “saving at the French Community means saving on education,” given that other FWB competencies are too small to contribute meaningfully to the savings operation. “Given the financial situation of the French Community, there is no other choice than to save,” Gerlache said. “I fear the situation is currently hopeless.”

What’s Next

The new school year promises to be turbulent. With strike notices already filed for the first three days, and the Mars Attacks collective planning to disrupt the start of the school year, the autumn is likely to bring renewed confrontation between the government and the education sector.

De Witte summed up the union’s position: “We want to ask Glatigny to tackle the teacher shortage by investing, not by cutting. She will have to listen at some point. If no solutions come for the problems that exist now, the quality of education will not improve.”

For the youngest teachers like Julie, the immediate future is uncertain. “I didn’t see coming that I would simply lose all my hours,” she said. As the school year begins, the question is whether the government’s third round of cuts will be the last - or whether the growing resistance will force a change of course.