The end of EducIT but the beginning of...

EducIT ASBL is bidding farewell on 7 July 2023 after 5 years in the service of digitising secondary education in the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles .

What an adventure!!!

It wasn't easy every day.?There were many obstacles to overcome. If this project is a success, we owe it to all the partners who supported it with us. From the outset, our philanthropists, who must have had confidence in Daniel Verougstraete and me, coming from totally outside the world of education, supported us financially, insisted on the shared need to create a systemic model, i.e. an approach which, once validated and put on a certain scale (100 schools), could be taken up by the education system without EducIT's intervention.

And here we are!

We've been working on this since the very beginning of the project. By federating all the networks, by meeting all the public players (with a more or less sympathetic reception depending on the players and the times), by meeting the trade unions and parents' associations, by contacting as many directors and teachers as possible, by communicating via the press (almost a press presence every month since the birth of the organisation, https://www.rentreenumerique.be/presse), by making more than 250 presentations of the model to head teachers, teachers and parents, by hammering home the point wherever possible, everything in start-up mode.?We believe this is the secret of our success.

Seeing 5, then 20, then 50 and now more than 100 schools join the project over the last 4 years without any of them stopping is also proof that the 'Rentrée Numérique' method is working well.

The external evaluation carried out by the Université de Liège involving ~5,000 people (school directors, teachers, students and parents) has enabled the model to be established and validated on a large scale.

The clear and committed decision by the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles to promote the model and to bring it in a legal framework, so that all 360,000 pupils in the federation can eventually be equipped with a computer, by co-financing the hardware (€150/pupil), setting up a substantial solidarity fund to ensure that every pupil can be equipped even if parents are unable to pay their share, and funding 42 technopedagogues within the networks, was the trigger for the ramp-up.? EducIT ASBL showed the way and the Federation followed suit.

The 42 technopedagogues are ready to continue the project in their respective networks, colouring it in their own way. This is a fabulous example of public-private collaboration. It's the kind of example we should be seeing all the time, so that we can benefit from the best of both worlds for the good of the community.

The Trends Impact Award "Diversity & inclusion" won at the end of 2022 is a national recognition that has shown that the project has had a real impact and silenced certain non-progressive rumours that prefer to capitalise on outdated recipes from the past, rather than embracing a model that has been tried and tested first abroad, and then by Educit asbl. Thanks to the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles , the Fondation pour l'Enseignement , the King Baudouin Foundation , Astralis, the Sofina Covid Solidarity Fund, Agir pour l'enseignement, SeGEC - Enseignement catholique , Wallonie-Bruxelles Enseignement (WBE) , Technopédia CPEONS , Campus Numérique - Hainaut-Enseignement , Felsi. Special thanks to Daniel Verougstraete (associate), Bolle Jean-Philippe (coordinator), Alain Doutrelepont , Isabelle Fievet , Benoit Naveau , Vinciane Ducoulombier , Virginie Beys , Samuel Musique , Lise Galuga and Anne-Pascale Servais for your energy in supporting the project, and to Quentin Martens , Francoise Pissart , Audrey Hanard , Marc Flammang , Marie-Amélie Stiernet , Catherine Alexandre , Bertrand Fawe , Victor Casier and Harold Bo?l for their financial support.

Thanks you to Olivier Remels , Etienne Deno?l , Laurent Hublet , Adélie de Gerlache , Margot de Nicolay , Isabelle Van Lerberghe , Pascal Lafosse , Jean-Baptiste Van Zeebroeck , Alain Diseur, Eric Daubie , Pierre SCIEUR , Josette-Marie Houben , Marion DE LA MONNERAYE-LAVIELLE , Joséphine Rousseau , Valérie Leonet , Delphine Sweers , Patrick Beaudelot , Charline Carlot , Fabrice Pochez, Christophe Cambier and all the technopedagogues in their teams.

Thank you to the politicians Pierre-Yves Jeholet , Caroline Désir and Frédéric Daerden , who believed in EducIT ASBL , to the members of their cabinets Fabian Culot , Daphnee Marc , Audun Brouns and Salima Benamar , and to their administration Nathalie Bolland , Samira El Keffi , Marion Beeckmans and Najim SEKTANI .

Thank you to BeCentral and its wonderful team for hosting us (what a place !) and Be education.be for welcoming us into its network.

Thank you to my wife, Stéphanie Duhoux, who has supported me at every moment, from moments of doubt to moments of celebration. What a gift !

You've all helped us to bring this project to the stage it's at, and we're entrusting it to you from now on.

I hope that other projects like this will see the light of day in the future.