PUPILS
The number of pupils in elementary and secondary education in this leaflet refers to the number of pupils and students enrolled on February 1, 2009. For non-university tertiary education and university education the data refer to all active inscriptions in a diploma contract in an institution for higher education on 30 June 2009. A student can have several inscriptions. In adult education, part-time arts education and supervised individual study (BIS), enrolment rates are recorded. These rates may be higher than the number of physical persons as a pupil may be enrolled in several courses. In adult education, enrolments are counted for training programmes which were started in the period of reference (from 1 September 2007 up to and including 31 March 2008). The data for the reference period which started on 1 April 2008 were not available at the time of the editing of this publication. In order to avoid double counts, the pupils enrolled in special education due to long-term illness (pupils in type 5 special education) are not included in the figures of special education (127 pupils in special nursery education, 216 pupils in special primary education and 298 pupils in special secondary education). Pupils and students enrolled in French language schools or in French language sections of Dutch language schools coming under the authority of the Flemish authorities are not included in the figures either. Yet, for higher education, courses in other languages are included in the figures. Since the 2004-2005 academic year, Flemish tertiary education has been organising courses leading to Bachelor and Master Degrees. In Flanders, Bachelor courses are professionally oriented or academically oriented. Academically oriented bachelor programmes are mainly intended to make students pass on to master courses. A professionally oriented bachelor can take a master course after successful completion of a bridging programme. The study volume of bachelor courses amounts to minimum 180 credits. The study volume of master courses amounts to minimum 60 credits. As from the 2005-2006 academic year, the traditional year system is replaced by a more flexible system of credits.
SCHOOLS
A school is an institution which provides education and which is managed by one school head. In adult education, the term “centre for adult education” is used. Institutions providing special education type 5 are not included in the figures (6 schools in special nursery education, 6 schools in special primary education and 4 schools in special secondary education).
STAFF
Staff statistics only register staff members either paid directly by the Education and Training policy domain or staff members whose salaries are covered by the block grant awarded to higher education. As a consequence, staff members benefiting from the pre-pension scheme (TBS55+) are included in the figures. Maintenance, technical and service staff in subsidised educational networks is not included. Subsidised contractual staff is not taken into account either, as these staff members are not fully paid by the Education and Training policy domain. Contractual staff in tenured posts is included in the figures. Staff data on the 2008-2009 school year relate to January 2009, as known in June 2009. University staff data were provided by the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR) and relate to February 1, 2008. Data on the 2008-2009 academic year were not available at the time of going to press of this publication. As far as education staff is concerned, a distinction is made between managing and teaching staff on the one hand and other staff categories on the other. Managing staff consists of school heads and deputy heads. Teaching staff carries out a teaching assignment or benefiting from the pre-pension scheme. Other staff categories comprise admini
strative staff, manual staff of Community education, educational support staff, paramedic staff, staff of Pupil Guidance Centres, inspectorate staff, educational supervision staff, staff in boarding schools and child carers in nursery education. In elementary education, managing and teaching staff includes, as of the 2003-2004 school year, physical education teachers (in nursery education) and special care co-ordinators. Numbers of staff members are expressed in physical persons. Physical persons are registered for the education level and education network where they carry out their main teaching assignment. The number of staff members expressed in full-time equivalents is the sum of all partial assignments of all staff members (in other words including the replacements of less than one year). In colleges of higher education, teaching assignments of visiting professors and mandate fees are not included in the full-time equivalents. As for university education, figures on staff include visiting professors and early retired in terms of staff members, but not in the budgetary full-time equivalents. Since the school year 2008-2009 there is an increase in the number of staff in the category ‘other’ (staff by level of education). This can be explained by a reclassification of the staff in boarding schools. In the past this staff members have been taken into account in the level of education of the school connected with the boarding school. From this school year on the staff has been allocated to the category ‘other’. This change only has an impact on the data in the category ‘other staff categories’ (and not on the data in the category ‘managing and teaching staff’). From 1 September 2008 the staff members working in adult basic education are paid directly by the Education and Training policy domain. The Education and Training policy domain functions as ‘third payer’ for the staff members which have an employment contract with the adult basic education centre and who are not paid in another way. This ‘third payer's scheme’ has been introduced on the basis of the decree on adult education (15 June 2007).
BUDGET
The budget is expressed in terms of available operating appropri ations which are estimated annually and entered into the (adjusted) expenditure budget of the Flemish authorities. The operating appropriations comprise non-differentiated appropri ations, differentiated commitment appropriations, variable appropri ations, authorisations and additional appropriations of previous years, decreased by appropriations intended to cover the liquidation of commitments and by expenditure intended to cover debt load. The term available appropriations means that these appropriations in addition to the appropriations mentioned above also comprise the share of overall provisions (mainly index and collective agreement) and reallocations of appropriations. Data for 2009 relate to the initial appropriations. Certain cross-level expenses, of which the breakdown among the different levels is known, are allocated to the respective levels (amongst other things educational priority policy and investments). Without this adjustment one gets a distorted picture of the actual expenses per level. For 2009 the actual data are not available yet. Either the same breakdown as in 2007 or estimation was proposed. Thus, these figures do not take account of the efforts paid by other (local) authorities, nor of the efforts paid by parents, schools and private companies. The cost per pupil is calculated on the basis of the number of pupils eligible for funding. A pupil eligible for funding is a regularly registered pupil who gets a weighting factor on the grounds of certain criteria such as education level, course of study, origin, ... The number of pupils eligible for funding defines the size of the operating budget and the staff of each education institution. Amounts are expressed in thousands of euros, unless specified otherwise.