For the first time, Education at a Glance 2025 includes a separate report for Flanders. And while it’s primarily intended for a domestic audience, it also offers something interesting to the rest of the world: a glimpse into an education system that, despite its flaws, manages to strike a balance between strong outcomes, equity, trust, and realism.

Here are a few lessons others might take away, with the usual Flemish modesty, of course.

Start early, and mean it.

Almost every three-year-old in Flanders attends preschool. That might sound obvious, but internationally it’s not. In many OECD countries, early education typically begins much later, often around the age of five or six. Flanders treats preschool as a full part of education, not childcare, with qualified teachers and a strong focus on language and social development. Equity begins early here, not at sixteen.

Public funding can work… if you spend it on people.

Flanders spends more per student than the OECD average, yet not extravagantly. Most of the budget is allocated directly to personnel, including teachers, support staff, and manageable class sizes (on average, some teachers still rightfully complain about large student groups). The message is simple but powerful: investing in public education doesn’t have to mean bureaucracy; it can mean priorities.

Autonomy works only with trust.

Schools in Flanders enjoy high levels of autonomy in pedagogy, assessment, and organisation. That freedom works because it’s rooted in a professional culture of trust. Autonomy without trust leads to chaos; trust without autonomy leads to inertia. Flanders manages, mostly, to stay in between.

Diversity is the next stress test.

While the system performs strongly, the gap between native-born and first-generation immigrant adults in literacy is one of the largest in the OECD. That’s a warning sign: what Flanders does well for many, it doesn’t yet do well for everyone. Any country looking to emulate the Flemish model should copy its consistency, not its blind spots.

What’s next?

Flanders has long been known for its quiet stability. The norm was improving through small, deliberate steps rather than big reforms. That’s changing. With the accelerated rollout of a knowledge-rich curriculum, the system is shifting gears. The challenge will be to keep what made Flemish education strong: trust, professionalism, and patience, while embracing clearer expectations about what students should know. If Flanders manages that balance, it will still have something to teach the world.