Study Finds Public European Schools Diminish Inequality in Luxembourg

On Friday 7 July 2023, a presentation of the preliminary results of a study on public European schools took place in the presence of the Luxembourg Minister of Education, Childhood and Youth, Claude Meisch.

Prof Dr Antoine Fischbach, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Educational Sciences and Social Sciences of the University of Luxembourg, Dr Thomas Lenz, researcher and manager at the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), and Dr Sonja Ugen, Acting Director of LUCET, held this presentation.

The government has established six public European schools over the past seven years. According to Luxembourg's Ministry of Education, Children and Youth, the creation of “different schools for different pupils” aimed to respond to the socio-economic, cultural and linguistic diversity of the pupils of the Luxembourg school. With a more flexible approach to language learning, public European schools aim to offer fairer chances of success to the heterogeneous school population, keeping in mind the linguistic profile’s importance for academic success.

“Even if the study is based on a still relatively small number of students, the results are more than encouraging. Faced with an increasingly diverse school landscape, they highlight the need for targeted guidance for all, so that each student can benefit from a school model adapted to their profile and their needs," said Minister Meisch.

The first pupils of a public European school in Luxembourg, in this case the International School of Differdange and Esch-sur-Alzette (EIDE), obtained the European Baccalaureate this year. The success rate of 98.6% provided reasons for a positive initial assessment of this school offer, an important innovation of recent decades in terms of educational policy, according to the ministry.

The composition of the student population of public European schools differs from that of schools following national curricula. On the one hand, according to the study, the socio-economic background of pupils attending public European schools is generally more favourable. On the other hand, newcomer pupils are over-represented in public European schools. The mother tongues of pupils in the European system are mainly French and English, with a strong under-representation of Luxembourgish and Portuguese, which are dominant in the national system.

The analysis of the educational path of pupils in European public schools, who benefit from flexible language teaching, was also noteworthy. Pupils in the European system were found to have fewer academic delays than pupils in the national system. They were also found to be less likely to change lanes and therefore to follow a more linear path.

Finally, the study showed that pupils in public European schools obtained better results in mathematical skills during standardised tests (Épreuves Standardisées - EpStan). This finding remains valid if only socio-economically disadvantaged students are considered. It thus confirmed the advantage for pupils of learning a subject in a language that they have a good command of, the study suggested.

Based on the findings of the study, the University of Luxembourg has made the following recommendations for educational policy in the Grand Duchy:

• diversifying the composition of the pupil population of public European schools in a targeted way, for example by encouraging these schools to target more effectively groups of pupils considered to be academically disadvantaged;
• improving the overall knowledge of public European schools by teachers and parents (characteristics, similarities and differences of national and European school offers, etc.) in order to allow parents to make an informed decision about their child's course;
• introducing certain features of the public European schools in schools following the national curricula (e.g. widening the language offer in light of the French literacy pilot project currently underway).

The recommendations of the University of Luxembourg reportedly affirmed the ministry's efforts and encouraged the ministry to further develop the school offer and to generalise optional literacy in French.

The study report can be downloaded from https://orbilu.uni.lu/handle/10993/55481. According to the ministry, it provides the scientific basis for planning the development of the Luxembourg system education for years to come.