Almost one in two teachers in the French-speaking Community leaves the profession in the first five years of their career, according to the teaching union UFAPEC (Union des Fédérations des Associations de Parents de l’Enseignement Catholique). The reason for the classroom desertion is a lack of training in coping with many aspects of teaching, including failing kids and conflict management, said the union’s president.

A man suspected of stealing copper from a railway line close to Bruxelles-Chapelle train station, initially told police that a sports bag and trolley lying a few metres away from the scene of the crime did not belong to him. But the bag revealed a mobile with the man’s photo on its screen. The 37-year-old later admitted the theft.

Walloon cockerel flags are outselling those bearing the lion of Flanders. One of the largest sellers of flags in the country, Wollux in Mouscron, sold 1,518 Walloon flags compared to 452 Flemish ones between April 2010 and July 2011. But the company reported a greater increase in the sale of Belgian flags during the same period. Some 2,786 Belgian flags were sold, despite the lack of government since June 2010.

One week before the beginning of the new school year, 227 children in the French-speaking Community do not have a first-year place in secondary school. The registration period for secondary school ended on April 1, leaving 849 children still on a waiting list. Among the pupils still waiting for a place, 214 live in Brussels, four in Walloon Brabant and the remaining nine in other parts of the French-speaking Community.

A Vilvoorde man who claimed in June to have been mugged and thrown in the canal by his attackers has admitted making up the whole story. The man said he was robbed, had builders’ foam squirted in his mouth and was thrown into the canal. The man invented the crime, apparently inspired by an episode of the TV drama CSI, to avoid paying a large debt.

Source: Flanders Today, News in brief 24/08/11