Why are teachers’ letters from Liège being cycled to the Wallonia-Brussels Parliament?
A relay of volunteer cyclist “postmen” is collecting letters from teachers and pupils in Verviers, Liège and Seraing and carrying them to the Parliament of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels.
In 30 seconds
- Volunteer cyclists plan to collect letters from teachers and pupils in Verviers, Liège and Seraing for delivery to the FWB Parliament.
- The competent authority for Francophone compulsory education is the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, not the federal government.
- Valérie Glatigny is the FWB Vice-President and Minister of Education and Adult Education in the Degryse government.
- The action sits inside the 2024-2029 legislature, when MR and Les Engagés hold the FWB majority.
The subject is a Walloon-Francophone education mobilisation using a “relais facteurs velo” format: cyclists collect written testimony from schools around Verviers, Liege and Seraing before delivering the Parlement FWB courriers in Brussels. The competent authority is the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, not the federal government or the Walloon Region. Valérie Glatigny, Vice-President and Minister of Education and Adult Education of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, is the lead minister for compulsory education. Élisabeth Degryse, Minister-President of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, leads the MR-Les Engagés government. Benoît Dispa, President of the Parliament of the French Community, presides over the assembly to which the letters are being addressed.
Background
Education became a Community competence after Belgium’s state reforms, with French-speaking education governed through the Federation Wallonia-Brussels. The deeper background is the Pact for Excellence, a long-running reform programme intended to improve outcomes, modernise curricula and reorganise the school pathway. Successive governments have treated it as structural reform; many teachers have experienced it as a sequence of operational changes layered onto existing workload and staffing pressures. The 2024 elections then opened a new political cycle, with MR and Les Engagés replacing the previous PS-MR-Ecolo balance in the Federation Wallonia-Brussels government.
What to do
Parents should check school communications for any local participation or schedule effects. Teachers who contribute letters should keep a copy, identify whether they write personally or through a school group, and avoid including identifiable pupil data unless consent and school rules allow it.
The Belgian angle
The local map matters. Verviers, Liège and Seraing are not symbolic add-ons: they are dense school catchment areas with mixed urban, post-industrial and lower-income communities where changes to staffing, support services or class organisation are quickly felt by families. The Seraing relais facteurs element also gives the campaign a visible route through the Liège industrial basin before it reaches Brussels institutions.
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- Published:
- 31 May 2026, 02:00
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- 24 Jun 2026
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- Published:
- 15 Jul 2024, 02:00
- Retrieved by ODIN:
- 24 Jun 2026
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- Retrieved by ODIN:
- 24 Jun 2026
- Publication date unavailable
- Retrieved by ODIN:
- 24 Jun 2026
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