Study of the absence of school in the Brussels-Capital Region

Children are compulsory to ecudation from the age of 6 until the end of the school year in which a adolescent turns 18. In reality, school absence is a major problem. Calculations from Galand et al. (2011) show that 45% of adolescents have a risk of leaving school early: there is a problem of absenteeism, they sometimes think of leaving school and they even think they will benefit from this. In recent years, between 15% and 20% of adolescents left school early (Chenu and Blondin, s.d.).

It is very important to address this problem in a timely and adequate manner, as it appears that drop-outs show criminal behavior more frequently (Garry, 1996) and are more often encountered in social problems (Reid, 1984). If school failure causes early school leaving, there is also a risk of a lack of integration in the labor market and in society.

The research has two parts, each part leading to the realization of two goals:

1. The description of the current situation and policy on school absenteeism for the Brussels-Capital Region. The first goal is to make a detailed overview of the school absence. The second goal is to create an inventory of policy actions and initiatives against school failures and their evaluations.
2. The development of a Brussels strategy against the absenteism, the elaboration of a common definition of school absenteeism and indicators is a first goal and formulating recommendations is the second goal.