Belgium/ 8.3 Arts and cultural education  

8.3.5 Basic out-of-school arts and cultural education

Flemish Community

"ACCE" stands for "Ambtelijke Coördinatie CultuurEducatie" and is the official coordination platform between the various entities of the policy domain Culture, Youth, Sports and Media, in which policy officials from different departments are represented.

Culture and education meet in CANON Cultuurcel, the cultural unit of the Education Department, set up to give culture a place within the school environment. In 2005, the Ministry of Culture initiated a large-scale participation study. The results showed that levels of cultural participation largely reflect levels of schooling and education. The family situation also has an influence on the way people participate in culture.

Cultural education crosses several policy fields (Culture, Youth, Sports, Media, Education...) and different sectors and actors are involved. The activities of actors within the policy fields of Culture and Youth are being regulated by a whole series of different measures (decrees, regulations, directives...). This has translated into a very rich and diverse, but fragmented field of cultural educational organisations, projects and operations. Depending on the decree that settles their allowance and / or recognition, organisations must take into account other formal or organisational criteria such as the target group (youth or adults), number of hours and type of training, operational area (within or outside the school), orientation (guidance to the professional arts, personal development...)… in order to get subsidized. Therefore, one can not really speak of a homogeneous cultural education "sector" that organizes itself collectively with a view to practical support, knowledge acquisition, networking...

Specific art education organisations and educational services within museums, theatres and other cultural institutions are covered specifically by the Arts Decree. Irrespective of the Decree under which they are subsumed, art education organisations are united in the "Federatie van Organisaties voor Kunsteducatie" (FOK, Federation of Organisations for Art Education).

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