Belgian Bachelor students take longer to finish their studies

It's official now: about half of the Belgian students who take a Bachelor degree don't finish their studies in the course of three years.

In my days (oh yes, I'm becoming an oldie) it was practically a shame if you weren't able to get good grades and couldn't receive your degree (whether it was a Bachelor's or a Master's) in due course. IN those days (late 1970's) it was 2 years and 4 yea

But now students often take 5-6 years before they even have a Bachelor's. What's the reason?

I can see some. Having been a teacher until my pension, I have seen how education at high school isn't the same as it was when I was a school kid. For instance, if you are a teacher of languages, it's only natural your students should have a chance to learn about literature, grammar. But in the guidelines from government nowadays the teacher is forbidden to teach this! Now, how can you really learn a language that way?

There is also a shortage of teacher right now. Small wonder, with all the measures government took. More and more administration, more work after the hours, pension postponed until you're 67, .... just name it. When I started, we only had to work 20 hours a week, we always had one day off during the week. And when you were a language teacher, you only had to do 18 hours because you needed the other two to make corrections. And of course, we could take our pension at 60. I can't imagine being in a class full of youngsters when you're older.

Another reason for failing your studies has to be found in the use of social media. We didn't have a computer, so there wasn't Facebook, Instagram or whatever. Which doesn't mean we didn't take leisure time, it just was different. Now lots of young people study with their smartphone next to them. Very hard not to look at it!

What do you think?