Flunking the Future: Belgium’s Aspiring Teachers Bomb 12-Year-Olds’ Tests
6th June 2025
Many trainee teachers in Belgium—who may stand before classrooms in the near future—are failing primary-level tests for mathematics, French, and Dutch.
That is according to the results of teacher training starting tests, seen by Flemish daily De Standaard. The paper revealed that one in three trainees score less than 50% in maths tests designed for 12-year-olds. An even higher 43% score less than half marks in French tests, and 27% are ‘advised’ to take extra lessons. (But who will teach them?)
Perhaps even more concerning is that just 2.91% of the almost 7,000 participants scored between 85 and 100%.
Researcher Wim Van den Broeck said there has been a “silence” around this issue for some time, adding that “the drop in level is a massive and widespread problem, also at colleges and universities.” It is also by no means limited to Belgium.