Founded in 1973, the Scandinavian School of Brussels closed its doors at the end of the 2020 school year.
Predictable closure
For almost 30 years, the school had occupied the prestigious Château d’Argenteuil campus in Waterloo. It offered education based on a mixture of the Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish school systems. Primarily intended for children of Scandinavian expatriate families living in Belgium, the school has welcomed thousands of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish pupils for decades. However, in recent years the Scandinavian school in Brussels has known a relatively large drop in enrollment. In 2015, the school still had approximately 300 students and in 2020 they were only 40.
Several factors explain the drop in the number of students
The main cause seems to be directly linked to a gradual decrease in the number of Scandinavian families living in Belgium. Indeed, Scandinavian organizations and companies located in Belgium have considerably reduced the number of positions formerly intended for their employees on Belgian soil. Secondly, the health crisis linked to the Coronavirus has most likely amplified and accelerated this phenomenon. Finally, competition within the international schools of Brussels is still very present.
To cope with this decrease in the number of students, the Scandinavian School of Brussels established in 2019 a collaboration with the European School of Brussels-Argenteuil, also located on the Argenteuil campus. The Scandinavian school had also adapted its offer by offering only the Swedish secondary program. This program allowed graduating students to continue their studies in Sweden or abroad.
Swedish secondary program organized at the European School of Brussels-Argenteuil
Unfortunately, this new collaboration did not allow the Scandinavian school to boost enrollment. In June 2020, the school therefore decided to stop its activities.
Since 2020, part of the staff of the former Scandinavian school in Brussels has been directly integrated into the European School of Brussels-Argenteuil. The Swedish secondary program is still offered, but now within the European School of Brussels-Argenteuil.