Belgium, French Community : Reorganisation of the Higher Education Landscape

On 6 November 2013, the government of the French Community of Belgium has voted the decree on the general reorganisation of the higher education landscape.

The reform is centred around three key words : excellence (of research), consistency (of training provision) and quality (of teaching), with the willingness to promote student’s success.

The core element of the reform is the creation of an umbrella structure : the ARES (Académie de Recherche et d'Enseignement Supérieur). The ARES will be an “Academy” gathering the main higher education stakeholders, in order to complete and better coordinate Higher Education provision in the French Community. The aim is to move from a competitive approach towards stronger collaborations and synergies at institutional level. Higher Education will be organised in 5 geographic clusters. Apart from these structural aspects, the reform focuses on organisation of the curriculum. The guiding thread of the project is the student, his status, the promotion of academic success, the diversity of provision (including proximity for first cycles), and quality of the curriculum. The project also aims at following the international evolution based on excellence, personalised and lifelong curricula, international and pluridisciplinary openness, teachers and students mobility, etc. While the current organisation too often tends to focus on academic failure, the reforms aims at promoting achievement and success.

The implementation of the reform is planned for September 2014.