BRUSSELS – Hogeschool Sint-Lukas in Brussels, the departments NARAFI, Sint-Lucas Architecture in Brussels, Sint-Lucas Visual Arts in Ghent, the Lemmens Institute in Leuven and the Media and Design Academy of the Catholic Hogeschool in Limburg are going to merge into a single new art and architecture school.

On Wednesday 24 October the schools signed a declaration of intent to this end. Sint-Lucas announced this in a press release on Tuesday. “The educational offerings will be organised on six campuses spread out between the Meus and Schelde,” the report reads. “The new increased scale will allow students to choose from a richer offering of courses in a hogeschool that will be able to compete with established European institutions.”

In the coming months a number of working groups will further work out the details of the organisational structure, strategy and mission statement. The new art and architectural academy is expected to open in October 2008.

The merger will provide places for 4,500 students and 550 faculty. “With this size the school will provide Flemish education with an institution that can be compared to established European institutions like the University of the Arts in London (24,000 students), the Bauhaus University Weimar (4,000), the Amsterdam Hogeschool for the Arts (2,600) and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki (1,700),” according to the press release.

The school will offer professional and academic degree programmes in architecture, audiovisual and visual arts, industrial sciences and technology, and music and performing arts.

[Copyright Expatica News 2007]

Subject: Belgian news