VSK responds to teachers’ strike: “Not age but quality matters”
A lot of commotion in Belgium recently. In the future teachers will have to work two years longer. The teacher unions were not pleased and have been threatening with a national strike on Wednesday 28th of March. OBESSU’s Belgian member the Vlaamse Scholierenkoepel (VSK) asks to stop this debate about age, and calls to shift the focus of the debate from age to quality teaching.
VSK-chairman Elio De Bolle (17) stated that the age of a teacher doesn’t determine whether his class appeals to or not. Therefore the focus of the debate should change to what makes a good teacher, rather than on how old he or she is. According to VSK, a teacher should be someone who knows his domain inside out and who teaches with passion and enthusiasm. Good teaching is their job. When society changes, we change. A good teacher learns to master all these changes.
Rather than focusing on the age-debate, we should think about the following:
- How can teachers stay motivated until the end of their career?
- What is the core-business of a teacher and what isn’t?
- How can schools keep renewing themselves?
- How can we bring the student’s world into the classroom?
- How can we learn more outside of school?
VSK calls on the unions, educational organizations, parents associations and Flemish Minister of Education Pascal Smet to think together about these questions. VSK will be glad to bring in the student’s voice in the debate.
