Belgium Education
Elementary education. – The organic law of primary education (read 20 September 1884; 15 September 1895; 19 May 1914; 13 November 1919; 14 August 1920; 21 August 1921; 18 October 1921) is based on the following principles: 1) obligation for parents to provide children aged 6 to 14 with adequate primary education; 2) free choice of teaching; 3) free primary education; 4) equality of state subsidies for all schools meeting the legal requirements; 5) State control of teaching
According to top-mba-universities, the law obliges municipalities to organize primary education. Three categories of schools are recognized: 1) municipal schools, established and directed by the municipalities; 2) free schools adopted, established and directed by private individuals, but adopted by municipalities; 3) the free schools that can be adopted, established and directed by private individuals and subject to the provisions of the law.
With the provision of September 28, 1922, a standard program was published which must be carried out over eight years in all elementary schools. Religious education is compulsory in municipal and adopted schools, but those pupils whose parents apply for it may be exempted. The law does not distinguish between cults and the ministers of the different cults are authorized to give or have religious instruction given to their followers in schools.
Middle education. – The medium education includes the upper and lower grades. The first is given in the royal universities, in the colleges (provincial, municipal and free) and in the women’s high schools (provincial, municipal and free). The universities are divided into three sections; in each of them the duration of the courses is six years. The age for admission of pupils is not established; they generally enter around the age of 11 or 12 and complete their studies between the ages of 17 and 18. The three sections are: 1) the section of the Greek – Latin humanités which prepares especially for the doctorat in philosophy and literature, in law, in natural sciences, in medicine; 2) the section of humanites latines which prepares especially for notaries, al doctorat in physical and mathematical sciences, in the entrance exams for engineering studies, and in the entrance exams to the military school; 3) the section of humanités modernes, which after the fourth year is divided into a scientific section and a commercial and industrial section.
Lower secondary education is given in junior high schools for men and women organized by the state, provinces, municipalities and individuals. The middle school includes at least one general education section with three-year courses identical to those of the three lower classes of the humanités modernes in the royal universities. It may also include a Greek-Latin or Latin section and one or more special sections (commercial, industrial, administrative).
High school education. – The higher institutes of the kingdom are the state universities of Ghent and that of Liège, the free university of Brussels, the Catholic university of Louvain, the faculty of philosophy and literature of the Saint-Louis Institute of Brussels, the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and the Faculty of Sciences of the Notre-Dame de la Paix College of Namur, the École des Mines et de Métallurgie of Mons.The legal academic degrees, regulated by the law of 10 April 1890 – 3 July 1891, are required for the exercise of the professions of doctor, pharmacist, lawyer, notary, and for the functions of magistrate, professor in official teaching and engineer in state offices. The universities (the two state universities, the free one in Brussels and the Catholic one in Leuven), which confer these degrees, they also issue them on a purely scientific basis, so as not to qualify for their respective professions. Furthermore, there are scientific degrees for studies for which there are no legal degrees: thus, for example, the technical faculties and engineering schools confer the degrees of chemical engineer, mechanical engineer, electrician, metallurgist, geologist, civil engineer, architect, etc.
