Page 15 - Looking_after_school

Introduction

on us, we believe that further study is needed. For this purpose, we
will use the following questions as a guideline: what exactly is at stake
today in placing the student at the centre of education? Why would
someone nowadays appeal to focus more on the student? What are
the consequences for the school? These are the questions that will be
explored in this book.
Before diving into these questions, however, it is relevant to take pause
and reflect on a remarkable shift. Reform pedagogy was mostly a grass-
roots movement (that, to be sure, wanted to influence policy), and the
post-war claims on student-centeredness were mostly concerned with
the translation of new scientific insights on learning and teaching.
Today, however, the pushing of the student forward as the centre of
educational affairs is foremost a priority for policymakers. The ambi-
tion to focus more on the student is today mostly a directive of policy-
driven educational reforms (see also Mincu, 2012). For that matter, this
ambition is not only visible in educational policy, as there are similar
reform movements in other domains and sectors: think of customised
care in welfare services, personalised employment counselling, per-
sonalised empowerment in poverty reduction, and so on. We should
thus engage with the contemporary policy discourse to understand
why it is so important to give the individual student (but also client,
patient, labourer…) centre stage today.
As might be expected, the content of this book also touches on con-
crete developments. We use Belgium (Flemish Community) and the
Netherlands as examples, but these developments have taken place
– and often much earlier - in many other countries. In Belgium and
the Netherlands, thorough educational reforms specifically targeted
towards the dismantling of special education have recently been car-
ried out. Placing each student back, or more, in the spotlight has been
a guiding principle for these reforms. For example, the aim of the
so-called M-decree (2014) in Belgium (Flemish Community) is to give
students who were previously oriented to special schools a place in the
regular system. Appropriate care and support are provided in order
to meet their special needs within mainstream schools. This policy is
regarded as an important step towards inclusive education. Similarly,
Appropriate Education (“passend onderwijs”) in the Netherlands aims
to place every student (as much as possible) within the regular educa-

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