Problems Facing Secondary Education in Brussels

Abstract

Brussels, capital of the kingdom of Belgium and headquarters of the executive European institutions and of NATO's political institutions, is a nineteen-district conurbation with a total population of one million, while the city of Brussels as such has a population of little over 170,000. Despite its French-speaking majority, this conurbation is an enclave totally encapsulated within the Flemish part of the country, though in the south it is cut off from the Walloon region by no more than a single commune, with Rhode-Saint-Genese alone separating Uccle and Waterloo and Hoeilart the sole 'barrier' between Watermael-Boitsfort and La Hulpe. The existence of these localities in which the enclave is almost breached and French speakers are numerous plays an important part in the geopolitical analysis of Greater Brussels which by law is limited to the nineteen communes and enclosed within a carcan as the French-speaking community puts it. In practice, there is invariably no solution making for continuity between the communes forming the enclave and the immediately adjoining ones which of necessity all belong legally to the Flemish region. However, six of the latter benefit from a special status termed a facilites (i.e. including special provisions) for the benefit of their French-speaking residents. Of incidental interest is the fact that these residents who are officially regarded as 'minorities' within their communes are in fact sometimes in a numerical majority. The statement that Brussels (in the sense of Greater Brussels to be used exclusively throughout this paper) is inhabited by a Francophone majority has to be doubly qualified. First, in its million inhabitants, Brussels includes some 250,000 foreigners of whom only a small minority are born French speakers. And out of the remaining 750,000 Brussels residents of Belgian nationality no more than an estimated 650,000 plus are truly Francophone in the sense of habitual users of French irrespective of where they are originally from. Clearly, this is substantially short of the 85% proportion of French speakers proclaimed by the official bodies of the 'French Community' in Brussels. Secondly, this proportion applies to those officially resident in Brussels. Yet when one considers the active population, the Flemish-speaking community is, relatively speaking, appreciably better represented. Out of over 600,000 workers employed in Brussels, only 350,000 are resident there, while the proportion of workers who are Flemish but resident outside Greater Brussels stands at over 70%. Brussels is thus, so to speak, far more Flemish at noon than at midnight [1]. However, although this state of affairs does much to shape the politico-cultural