Session of school principals in French-speaking Western Europe (EOF).

Under the aegis of the Province of EOF, a seminar brought together, in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), from 16 to 19 January 2019, about fifty heads of schools of the Belgian and French Jesuit networks. The theme of the session was "Responsible, empowered, empowering", in line with the theme proposed by the General Secretariat of Catholic Education: "Responsibility in Sharing". This is the sixth meeting of heads of schools since 2004.

The objective was to get school principals to review the organization of their school in terms of the empowering of the different actors in the school: members of a management team, staff members or students. The guiding principle was that these school principals become actors in the session, that they share their experience after having heard various contributions to feed their reflection on the development of managerial and educational strategies. Trying to influence and transform our institutions by adopting a more participatory and empowering management of the various actors in the school could also lead to the question of how to work towards management excellence, declined under the 4 C's: Conscience, Competence, Compassion and Commitment.

The intervention of Father Provincial, Fr. François Boëdec SJ, was particularly noticed and appreciated. We can call it as a founding speech. Taking up Father General Arturo Sosa SJ's invitation, launched in Rio in 2017, to work towards reconciliation between humans, with creation and with God, Father Provincial made particularly enlightening remarks for the educational project of all our schools.

"The challenge is to train young people so that they can be real agents of change in our society, so that they are not prisoners of a social environment, but capable of seeing further, of moving our societies towards more justice, of taking up the challenges of the fight against poverty, against unemployment, against the destruction of the planet, against a certain form of financial management that destroys society. »

"The announcement of faith is not optional.

We are not afraid to say what is at the heart of the establishment project, and from which source we want to drink. This implies a great respect for the itineraries of each person, of other religions and spiritualities too, a concern to enable young people to discover the importance of interiority, and not to remain on the surface of their lives, but it also means having clear proposals not only for religious culture, but also for the presentation and accompaniment of the Christian faith, in its most central aspect, that is, the personal encounter with Christ, which can give meaning to a life, open horizons of freedom and fill an existence. A living, simple, joyful faith, which favours the inner structure more than the armor, in a Church that breathes and is not afraid of the world, in the image of Pope Francis. »

Variety and diversity

The varied content of the interventions and the diversity of the personalities who testified to their personal and professional experience largely opened up perceptions and representations. The participants were nourished, challenged, sometimes disturbed by an intellectual, musical and human adventure. Guy Perier, "conductor" of the meeting, and Michel Scheuer SJ, former Rector of the University of Namur, convinced us of the need to surround ourselves well in order to be able to exercise our responsibilities effectively but also to leave the "framework" to renew the sense of mission and the project of a shared work.

At the end of this seminar, no solution was given but beautiful encounters augur well for a fruitful collaboration and a simple invitation to let oneself be carried away by what has been experienced during the training session, to translate it into actions, where and when the need will arise. The invitation will allow each participant to deploy his or her talents and to orchestrate, with others, within his or her institution, the best responsible education service for the young people entrusted to him or her.

Arlette Dister-Jacquemotte
(Delegate of the Provincial for schools in French-speaking Belgium)