2023-12-12 05:00:00

“Hygiene problem”, “risk of fire”, “persistent odor”: the message left us by a mother from the Liège region via the orange Alert us button is very alarming. Indeed, she denounces numerous problems in her children’s school, the Alfred Heyne municipal school, located in Ougrée.

“In the nursery section, there is a persistent smell of urine emanating from the pipes, fungus and damp stains on the walls, large stains at the wall electrical outlets, also“, she adds. “The students and children live in these conditions for a whole week!“

We don’t know what they’re breathing in there.

The mother, who wished to remain anonymous, specifies that the school management has nothing to be ashamed of, because it is trying to appeal to the competent authorities. However, nothing really seems to be moving at the moment. Except that the moment has lasted for two years, according to her husband.

“It’s going to be at least two years, we’re trying to find out where it’s at, we’re being told that it’s ongoing, but we don’t see anything moving… Worse, it continues to deteriorate. When kids get in the car they stink, they smell like urine“, he explains, just as worried as his wife.

In addition to the repulsive appearance of the school’s interior, it is above all the children’s health that worries this couple. “We don’t know what they breathe. Who says that in a few months, they won’t have health problems because of mold? There are fungus and stains everywhere…“

As a result, these parents, who claim that other parents think the same thing, explain that they are thinking regarding changing their children’s school. “It’s a shame, because the faculty is great, but the facilities are poor“.

In order to see for ourselves what the parents said, we wanted to enter the building. Unfortunately, these accesses were refused to us by the competent authorities.

A problem that does not date from yesterday

If the situation here concerns a school in Ougrée, it seems that the problem is not recent in the region. In fact, a little over a year ago, we went to a school in Jemeppe-sur-Meuse which was in a rather worrying state.

At the time, the Minister of the Budget of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, Frédéric Daerden, promised that efforts would be made. “The needs are important. There has been a clear underinvestment for many years“, he admitted a year ago.

9 million m² were to be renovated in schools in Wallonia and Brussels. To do this, 4 billion had to be found. 2 billion had already been.

A year later, we would have liked to return to this school in Jemeppe-sur-Meuse to see if any progress had been made. The director of the establishment assured that work was in progress, unfortunately, we were once once more unable to go inside the establishment.

What then?

One year later, Frédéric Daerden is still Minister of the Budget. He agreed to take stock of the evolution of the situation in the Federation’s schools. As a reminder, an exceptional investment plan was born during the October 2021 conclave, during which an agreement on the refinancing of school buildings to the tune of one billion euros was reached.

“The health plan is being implemented“, he assures. This plan provided for the renovation of the toilets of 400 schools for 25 million euros. “Then there is the billion project. During the beginning of this year, we were able to complete the decree, but also the implementing order“, he explains.

Concretely, what is this plan? “As part of this billion, we decided to have 4 calls for applications. A first one was launched and finalized a few weeks ago. It is currently being analyzed, and at the start of next year, we will be able to allocate this first call which is for 300 million, which is for basic education“. 481 applications were received for this first call.

For the next three, we will have to be a little more patient at the educational establishment level. “A few days ago, we launched the second appeal, for 200 million euros, for higher education institutions“. This call will close on March 12.

The 3rd call, which concerns compulsory education, will take place during the first quarter and the last will be launched during the last quarter of 2024.It’s really on track, when we add everything up, we’re on the order of 2 billion additional to the classic envelopes. We were able to put into practice ideas that we had identified at the start of the legislature“, he explains.

In 2023, 285 projects were launched for a total subsidy amount of 140 million.

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