GO! Education of the Flemish Community

GO! organises official education in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. It is an autonomous body of the Flemish government which functions independently of the Flemish Minister of Education. GO! Council’s main mission is to guarantee free choice of education in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region. The GO! Council makes the main strategic choices for the future of GO!. It is supported by administrative and pedagogic services (including an in-service training department), located in Brussels. The organising power belongs to the 26 groups of schools (regional). Each group of schools manages all GO! institutions of education in a given region, consisting of a number of primary and secondary schools. GO! schools are spread all over Flanders and the Brussels-Capital region.

GO! provides education from nursery school, through compulsory school age through to adult education and including schools specialising in creative and performing arts and technical and professional education. GO! provides policy guidance, curriculum development and teacher training for its 700 schools / centres and for 35,500 members of staff serving 220,000 students in compulsory education and 109,000 in adult education.

Our mission

• To provide all children, whatever their background or status might be,  with equal opportunities in education, helping them in discovering  and developing their unique talents.

Education is not only about transferring knowledge or preparing for further studies or the job market. We of course want young people to acquire the necessary knowledge in an appealing way but find it equally important that they should grow into outspoken, outgoing, open-minded and critical citizens, able to find their way in today’s complex society.

In today’s world with its many aspects, beliefs, opinions, religions, ways of life it is more than ever crucial that we teach our children how to live together. To teach them that every person, whatever his or her opinion or way of life, is  worthwhile  and that none are superior compared to others. We firmly believe in this equal value-principle. Everyone is of course entitled to his or her own opinion but must also respect different attitudes in life in an open spirit and without condemnation.

That is why our schools must by nature be open to the world , they are not islands in their own right because the world today is anything but an island. Our schools must depict the world as it is in all its diversity. That is also why our baseline is “Samen leren samenleven” (learning all together how to live together).