Wallonia-Brussels Education Lifts Ban on Religious Symbols, Including Hijabs

This decision comes from Julien Nicaise, general administrator of WBE, the board of directors of the organizing authority and the management of the university colleges, the higher schools of the arts and the institutes of social promotion education under this organizing authority, reports La Dernière Heure.

"Two principles have guided our reflection. Firstly, official schools have always had the tradition of welcoming all students, regardless of their characteristics. Then, it seemed necessary to us to reaffirm the values of tolerance and emancipation of young adults by evolving the principle of neutrality to make it more inclusive. We are therefore asking the establishments to modify their regulations in the direction of an authorization of convictional signs except if reasons of hygiene, safety or pedagogical requirements justify their prohibition," explained Julien Nicaise.

This new measure would benefit 50,000 students. Even if it concerns all religious signs, the manager believes that it is especially the wearing of the veil that is targeted: "I’m not going to be hypocritical, we know very well that it’s especially the veil that is concerned. We all have a personal opinion on the subject but in this particular case, it is the general interest that has prevailed with the desire to include women who wear a veil. We know well that a diploma is an indispensable passport for employment and inclusion in general. The women enrolled in social promotion or in education are adults, it is logical not to refuse them and to favor a form of neutrality that allows to include them".

Regarding compulsory education, he assured that there is no change in sight at this stage. "For minors, we continue to apply the tacit rule which consists in leaving the freedom to the schools to decide to authorize or not the convictional signs. We did not wish to open the reflection to compulsory education because it seems more delicate to us. We are not mature enough," he certified.

"Not allowing the wearing of the veil in higher education amounts to breaking the aspirations of thousands of women. Education and employment are the main vectors of emancipation in our society. If we exclude Muslim women because of the veil, we must be aware that we are inflicting a form of moral and economic violence on them. By allowing veiled women to pursue higher education, we are on the contrary sending a tremendous message of hope to a whole segment of society," commented Mustapha Chaïri, president of the Collective against Islamophobia in Belgium