Belgium's Flemish Schools Had 38,285 Teaching Hours Unfilled in 2025

An official Belgian audit found 38,285 allocated teaching hours without an assigned teacher in Dutch-language mainstream full-time secondary schools on 18 March 2025, equivalent to 3.6% of the hours examined. The shortage was most severe in Brussels, in schools offering employment-oriented courses and in schools serving larger numbers of disadvantaged pupils.

The Court of Audit approved its report on 21 October 2026 and the Flemish Parliament registered it on 29 October. The figures describe a historical snapshot from the 2024–25 school year, **not a fresh measurement of vacancies in November 2026**. The auditors excluded religious or philosophical subjects and two specialist education pathways from the main calculation.

The report distinguishes several measures often conflated in public debate. The **structural shortage** of vacant posts without an assigned teacher was 18,032 hours, or 1.7%, in the March 2025 snapshot. Adding unfilled replacement hours for absent teachers brought the **total shortage** to 38,285 hours, or 3.6%. Counting absences for which a paid replacement was not permitted under the rules raised the broader **integral shortage** to 62,392 hours, or 5.9%. These are categories of allocated teacher hours, not proof that every hour resulted in a cancelled class.

That broader 5.9% measure was lower than the 6.9% recorded in March 2023, a meaningful improvement that the auditors and education commentator Pedro De Bruyckere both acknowledged. But the total shortage across the two sampled school years still ranged from 3.1% to 3.7%, and the average concealed large disparities.

The Court found the worst gaps in Brussels, urban centres, employment-oriented programmes and schools with more socioeconomically disadvantaged pupils. Mathematics and the languages Dutch, French and English were among the hardest subjects to staff. It also warned that the Flemish government's existing monitoring indicators did not yet provide a sufficiently complete or reliable picture of the shortage.

Schools were adapting by revising timetables, starting pupils later or sending them home earlier, assigning extra study periods, merging some classes and relying on existing teachers for additional hours. The auditors said these responses can reduce teaching time, constrain professional development and support, and increase pressure on staff. They did not conclude that every school made every adjustment.

The audit was based on administrative data from the 2022–23 and 2024–25 school years, a survey with 301 usable school responses and focus-group discussions with 25 principals. It is a systematic review, not a census of the present-day workforce.

In a written response dated 25 September 2026 and reproduced in the audit, Flemish Education Minister Zuhal Demir accepted the recommendations as useful for negotiations on an education pact with providers and unions. She said the administration intended to update its teacher-shortage indicators in the second half of 2026 and examine the auditors' suggestions, while cautioning that administrative data must be interpreted carefully. The government was also working on rules to rationalise secondary course offerings while retaining school choice.

The next test is whether the promised updated indicators and education pact yield comparable, current measures and documented improvements in the most affected schools. The October audit establishes the 2025 shortage and the limits of existing policy monitoring; it does not establish the precise shortage at the start of the 2026–27 school year.