Today’s blog post is about a recent event that occured in our family life. The loyal followers of our blog know that last year in August we got married in South-America. If you missed the blog post, you can click the link below of the 9th September.
New Lifetime Milestone : Married
In that blog post I describe the challenges of a long-distance relationship, the big decision we took as a couple and the challenges we faced to get the paperwork done for our marriage. The Belgian government took almost 6 months (1 week before the deadline) to get the paperwork approved. Then my wife could join her husband. Today our family is facing the same challenges that any foreign family immigrating to Belgium is facing.
Today’s blog post is about a recent challenge that Mrs DividendCake faced and I want the public to know about…
The Process
In June 2018 Mrs DividendCake decided it was time to apply for her drivers’ license. The past months she has been using public transportation (the bus with limited hours) to go to the city or go to her course Dutch. However public transportation is not trustworthy as sometimes buses don’t show up or the drivers decide to strike. During summertime there are only 2 buses to get to our home for a whole day. So in order to improve the mobility of our family and herself, she decided to apply for her drivers licence. So I started to do my research how to do this for a foreigner as Mrs DividendCake does not speak Dutch (yet).
If you are Belgian and you speak Dutch, you can go to the exam theory every day from 7 am until 4 pm and pay 15 Euro. On the website of the exam center, you can read that you can do the exam in another language with a certified translator. You need to make an appointment for this exam with a translator.
So I booked the exam for the 5th of July 2018 and paid 51 Euro for the exam with an English translator. This is the only option. We purchased the English books for 50 Euro and Mrs DividendCake started to study…every day. She also did the online exams and hardly made errors. The signs and rules are not much different than in her country.
The Exam
So the 5th of July Mrs DividendCake entered the exam and paid another 15 Euro, the base price that everyone has to pay. 20 people participated in the exam. 
The translator reads each exam question in English including the three possible answers. Then you have to pick on the screen the right DUTCH answer that was read to you in English within 15 seconds !!
As native Spanish speaking Mrs DividendCake her English speaking and listening skills are basic. And this was apparently the case for many participants of the exam. Almost every question had to be read several times by the translator.
As you can see at the photo Mrs DividendCake failed the exam. So did the majority of the other participants of the exam… Mrs Dividend Cake was very frustrated about this way of exam as she didn’t understand many questions while listening ! She told me that one lady was copying all her answers by leaning over and watching each click. She also told me that a Spanish father had his daughter in the exam and she came out shouting that this exam was pure fraud. How can you succeed when you can not read the answers in front of you ?
My Personal Opinion
So after the exam, I called the company SBAT who executed the exam. I questioned why the exam was executed this way and why participants could not read the answers and the question in English…they answered that this was the decided standard procedure…what a simple “Let Us Alone” answer.
When you can not read the exam question in English nor read the answers in English, the question becomes an English listening and translation exam. This no longer becomes a question of knowledge about the traffic rules but an exam about how quickly in 15 seconds you can translate the exam and answers in your head and pick the right DUTCH answer on the screen !!
Mrs DividendCake decided not to proceed with this ridiculous way of exam. She believes she can’t succeed this exam as she can’t translate those questions in her head in 15 seconds and then pick the right DUTCH answer on screen. One consequence is that I need to cancel the additional practice classes we had planned in August. This cancellation costs us another 30 Euro. Wasted money !
How can this be improved ?
I submitted an official complaint against the company and I got an email back that they will investigate the matter. They will send their conclusions back to me. Personally I have many questions about this offering. Is this really a certified translator doing this exam. What kind of certification does this person have or is it just an employee who can read English as nobody asks anyway about the certificate… Nobody of the foreigners will ask anyway, right? Well…I wonder. This bad service can be dramatically improved. I listed out three actions in below infographic.
The first simple Quick Fix that the company can do, is to provide the questions translated in English on a piece of paper. Then the participants can read the questions. That would only be fair to any foreigner with basic English skills doing the exam. However this is only a quick fix ! The final objective should be to provide the courses in different languages to any newcomer in Belgium. Traffic rules are 98% the same for each country on this planet. How come it is so difficult to provide this exam in a different language on a computer screen ?? Two weeks I was in Toronto and I asked my colleagues….do you know what happens in a modern country full of immigrants like Canada? English is the only official language but they provide the exam in Mandarin and Cantonese (Chinese), Italian and Spanish. In Montreal and Quebec also in French. Translating 40 questions takes less than 1 day…so how big of an investment would it be to translate all Dutch questions in another language and show them on screen ? 
I am convinced that a student with Developing Programming skills can do this in ONE month or less. Today the exam with a certified translator is offered ONCE a month. So in total this service is offered 12 times a year. How bad is that ?
The third option that I added is to provide this service on a demand basis and provide an online appointment booking capability. When I want to book a doctor appointment, I can login the website of the doctor practice and check his availability. Why is this not possible for a theory exam about traffic rules.
If you have 10 computers available, you can simply provide an online booking capability, whether this is a Dutch or and other language course…right?
Final Words
The impact on our family is big ! This bad service offering for foreign people has a major impact on their mobility. Mrs DividendCake can not take the car and pickup the kids from school. She can not drive to university in winter time but instead has to wait for a bus which might never show up. She has to continue to rely on public transport until the moment she masters the Dutch language one day. How unfair and discriminating is this ? Mrs DividendCake does have her drivers licence from her country… Yes she does ! Only Belgium doesn’t honor the drivers licence of her country.
The financial impact is at least a loss of 150 Euro. Additionally family has to help out with pickup of the kids and they incur costs as a result of that.
I am personally ashamed for the BAD service offerings we offer to NEW BELGIANS. THIS IS SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE AND DISCRIMINATING ! Language should not be a criterium for testing traffic rules and driving skills. I will continue to fight to put this bad service in the spotlight. Newspapers should make this public ! The government should change this service offering. I will tweet this blog post to some politicians such as Ben Weyts and the newspapers. This kind of service dates from early 2000’s and does not reflect a modern welcoming country like they do in Canada.
Let’s hope this service offering will change soon and this service offering will be MORE CUSTOMER CENTRIC !
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