How will teachers’ working conditions diverge between Flanders and francophone Belgium?

Belgium’s two largest education systems will change teachers’ working conditions on different tracks when the 2026-2027 school year begins: the French Community government is increasing the standard classroom load of many upper-secondary teachers from 20 to 22 periods a week, while adding protections for beginners, older staff and teachers returning after illness; the Flemish government is meanwhile requiring schools to preserve more teaching time as it prepares a wider reform of teachers’ duties, careers and remuneration. The measures are confirmed, although parts of their implementation and the longer-term Flemish reform remain under negotiation.

In the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, which runs French-language education in Wallonia and Brussels, the two-period increase is the most consequential immediate change. Élisabeth Degryse, Minister-President of the French Community, previously explained that upper-secondary teachers could be assigned the additional periods in lower-secondary classes. The government presents that flexibility as one response to staff shortages and as part of the savings incorporated into its 2026 budget. It does not mean every teacher will automatically move between levels, but it enlarges what schools can require within a full-time timetable.

Valérie Glatigny, First Vice-President and Minister of Education and Adult Education in the French Community government, announced accompanying measures after consultations with trade unions and organising authorities in February 2026. Teachers in their first year who work more than half time should receive a two-period reduction in face-to-face teaching, while the same relief is planned from age 60. Teachers beginning after 1 January may carry the beginner reduction into a further school year. The government also says temporary teachers who lose hours because of the timetable reform will receive additional protection, although the practical ability to retain each affected employee will depend on available posts and the final rules applied by schools.

Medical leave arrangements will change as well. According to Glatigny’s official communiqué, every teacher will receive a fresh entitlement to a maximum two-year period of therapeutic half-time work from the 2026-2027 school year, including people who previously used the scheme. A new two-year entitlement would become possible after ten years of seniority. Medical certification would be renewed every six months, with a specialist consultation required during the longer course of the arrangement where applicable.

The balance is politically delicate. The MR-Les Engagés coalition describes the package as an attempt to reconcile a severely constrained French Community budget, shortages in schools and protection for vulnerable career stages. The government argues that two fewer classroom periods for beginners and staff aged 60 or over will leave more time for preparation, mentoring and other professional duties. Its broader programme also promises simpler administrative requirements, including streamlined school steering plans, to return time to educational work.

Teachers’ unions and the opposition read the central measure differently. The CGSP Enseignement and the wider francophone trade-union front have repeatedly argued that classroom periods represent only the visible part of a teacher’s workload: preparation, marking, meetings, administration and individual pupil support continue outside the timetable. The PTB’s group leader in the French Community Parliament, Amandine Pavet, says raising the upper-secondary load threatens at least 1,300 posts. Earlier reporting cited an estimate of roughly 1,500 positions potentially affected. Those are political or sectoral projections rather than a confirmed count of redundancies, and the eventual employment effect remains unknown.

Flanders is travelling in a related but distinct direction under Flemish Minister for Education Zuhal Demir of the N-VA. For 2026-2027, the Flemish government has decided that teacher professional development must no longer reduce pupils’ teaching time. Schools must organise training and certain deliberative work without simply cancelling lessons, according to the Flemish government’s decision on the organisation of the school year. A related instruction prevents secondary schools from routinely sending pupils home early when a teacher is absent. In practice, those rules can transfer organisational pressure to school leaders and available staff, particularly where vacancies already make supervision difficult.

Demir is also working towards a more comprehensive definition of the teaching profession, potentially framed around a 38-hour working week and a clearer division between classroom teaching and other duties. That project draws on recommendations made in 2023 by Flanders’ Commission of Wise Persons, which proposed a paid induction year, more flexible careers and reform of the permanent-appointment system. It should not yet be treated as settled law: the number of compulsory classroom periods, the salary structure and the treatment of work outside lessons still require political decisions and social consultation.

The Flemish debate therefore centres less on an immediate across-the-board increase identical to the francophone 20-to-22-period measure and more on how schools account for teachers’ total working time. Demir’s supporters argue that clearer expectations and fewer non-teaching assignments could put scarce qualified staff where they are most needed. Vooruit parliamentarian Hannelore Goeman and CD&V parliamentarian Loes Vandromme, both from parties in the Flemish governing coalition, have nevertheless warned that measures such as returning detached teachers to their original schools will not necessarily fill vacancies in the places or subjects experiencing the sharpest shortages. Vandromme has also stressed that detachments can offer one of the few routes out of an otherwise flat teaching career.

The divergence is a product of Belgium’s constitutional structure, not a federal labour experiment. Education is principally a Community competence. The Flemish Community governs Dutch-language education, including its schools in Brussels, while the French Community governs French-language education in Wallonia and Brussels. The federal government retains limited responsibilities, including compulsory-schooling rules and parts of pensions and general social security, but it does not set ordinary teachers’ classroom loads. Brussels consequently contains two systems operating side by side, with different calendars, curricula, personnel statutes and reform timetables.

That institutional split has existed since education was transferred to the Communities during Belgium’s state reforms, but today’s changes expose a shared structural problem. Both governments are trying to reverse staff shortages and declining educational outcomes while controlling expenditure. One system has already attached a direct increase in classroom periods to its budget plan; the other is first tightening the use of the school day and developing a broader employment model. For teachers, the meaningful comparison is not simply 20 versus 22 periods, but the complete package of preparation time, job security, administrative work, career mobility and support.

Schools must now translate the confirmed rules into timetables before September. In francophone education, attention will focus on how many temporary posts disappear or are redistributed, whether the promised protections prevent involuntary job losses, and how the two-period reductions are staffed. In Flanders, unions and organising authorities will watch the workload created by preserving lessons during absences and training, while awaiting concrete legislation on the proposed career model. The direction is clear on both sides of the language border; the real workload and retention effects will only become measurable once the new school year is under way.