View over the Schelde river

Today I attended a day about what Antwerp Port could do in education terms. The companies in the Port, the Flemish government and Antwerp city are all working together to create as many possibilities as they can to educate and introduce pupils/students. One of the reasons is that the harbour is one of the most important powerhouses in the Flemish economy and will need about 20.000 new people in the next 10 to 15 years to keep it that way.

So on the one hand you have an enormous skills demand and on the other hand there is the typical big city problem of very high unemployment amongst young people. This seems strange, but is the reality not just for Antwerp, but for Rotterdam and some of the English ports. They recognise that a lot of the school going kids are not aware of the possibilities in the port. So they are trying to do something about it.

In the afternoon we had a short tour of the port, visiting some of the sluice systems and some of the companies (very interesting!). This shot is from the Frederik Hendrik bridge all the up north from Antwerp (almost on the Dutch border), overlooking the Schelde river.

PS more photos of de Quaeye Werelt can be found onFlickr.