The case shook the Flemish school community this week. A group of teachers from a special school in Ninove, East Flanders, are suspected of abusing several students with autism spectrum disorders.
The victims were subjected to ill-treatment and humiliation, and an investigation was opened by the East Flanders prosecutor’s office. The teachers in question also shared messages and pictures of these abuses on the WhatsApp group.
“I feel responsible”
In Flanders, there is no control by the Flemish school inspection services, which would have made it possible to reveal these reprehensible acts much earlier. The inspectors have been condemning the reduction of their resources in the field for years. “Ten years have passed since we no longer carried out inspections at this school,” Lieven Viane, Inspector General of the Flemish Inspectorate for Teaching, confirmed in front of the VRT microphone.
“In 2018, we asked the Flemish government to decree school attendance every six years. It used to be a check every ten years. But we are in a historical situation, because we have not attended many schools for a very long time. ,” he added.
The Flemish Education Inspectorate believes that it cannot “avoid all tragedies”. “But what happened shocks me and I feel responsible,” concludes Lieven Viane.