My name is Stéphanie, and I am the director of an art school at the secondary level, exclusively for adults aged 18 and above. We offer qualification and certification programs.

750 students - 35 member of staff (+/- 25 teachers and experts)

Cursus : Photography, visual arts, painting and drawing, ceramics, sculpture, artistic metalwork, mosaic, marquetry, watercolor, bookbinding, engraving, jewelry-making.

Strongly anchored in their local context, adult education institutions address learners with diverse personal and professional backgrounds who wish to acquire, develop, or update their skills—or simply give a new direction to their carreer. 

Students enrolled in artistic training within adult education are predominantly individuals seeking personal fulfillment through art. These learners are often motivated by a desire for self-expression, creativity, and personal growth rather than by professional objectives.

Many of them, however, do seek to acquire a high level of technical proficiency with the aim of ‘becoming an artist’—not necessarily as a profession, but as a personal aspiration. Their goal is not to earn a living from their art, but rather to reach a level of mastery that allows for meaningful artistic expression.

The context of public adult education in French-speaking Belgium is undergoing significant changes. In the future, training programs will need to lead directly to employment, which is not always the case at present. Indeed, an art school like mine can prepare students for the job market, but the art practiced and taught here is also a medium for personal fulfillment and self-expression.

Moreover, adult art education faces direct competition from higher art schools, which enjoy a stronger reputation because they offer university degrees and are perceived by young people and their parents as a more favorable pathway to employment. However, in the field of art, a degree is not necessarily a guarantee of talent.

My request is therefore the following: I would like to visit an adult education institution with a profile similar to my own school in order to understand how it operates, what its relationships are with higher education, and what role it plays within the artistic education landscape in its country. This would allow me to explore possible solutions and approaches that I could apply in my own context. The objective could also include sharing my perspective and expertise on the way we work here.