Onderwijsvrijheid in Vlaanderen en in Nederland

Abstract

In Belgium and the Netherlands, most schools are state-funded, faith-based (mainly Roman Catholic and Protestant) schools, but today this majority of Christian schools is no longer in accordance with the religious view of many parents and students. This, in turn, can lead to a restriction of parental school choice. In this contribution, we will focus on the differences between the Flemish and the Dutch education systems and argue why, in spite of a comparative legal and financial framework, the Dutch educational system is, compared to the Flemish system, better able to guarantee this school choice. The main reasons for this claim are (1) the diversity between different faith-based schools in the Netherlands compared to a more or less mono-religious model in Flanders; (2) the diversity within faith-based schools in the Netherlands, compared to the centralized governance of most Flemish faith-based (Catholic) schools; and (3) the policy of including religious symbols in most Dutch schools, versus a policy of exclusion in most Flemish schools.