Brussels-City offers monthly bonus to attract more French teachers

The City of Brussels is awarding a €155 gross monthly language bonus to teachers who have a qualification to teach French, in response to a short supply and growing demand for French-language tuition.

“We want to motivate people to follow the teacher training course,” said Anaïs Maes of the Socialist party Vooruit, Brussels' alderwoman for Dutch-speaking education.

French language lessons are compulsory at both secondary and at primary level in Belgium's Dutch-speaking schools.

In Brussels' Dutch-language schools these lessons – as in many Brussels schools – start in the first year of primary school. However, inner-city education is struggling due to the shortage of teachers who have the right certificate to teach French.

The city council is therefore creating a new language premium. Anyone who has already completed a teacher training course and obtained their French certificate (or procured their French certificate in some other way) will receive the €155 monthly gross premium from April.

With the premium, the many lateral or side-entrants to the profession - people wanting to become teachers but for now are working in other spheres - in schools will be encouraged to “actually take the teacher training course,” said Maes.

“Even people who completed a teacher training course, but didn’t get their credit certificate in French, can be encouraged to do so now.”

Maes added that Brussels attaches great importance to multilingualism: “For example, several Dutch-speaking schools participate in cultural and sporting projects with neighbouring French-speaking schools.”

Already in 2018, Brussels civil servants who could prove sufficient knowledge of a second language – either French or Dutch – were entitled to a language bonus. To do so, they had to pass an exam drawn up by Selor, the federal government’s selection agency at that time.

The higher the level achieved, the higher the premium, with the amount normally varying between €1,050 and €3,100 gross per year.