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Luxembourg's Ministry of Education, Children and Youth has presented the national results of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS), which looks at the digital skills of students.
In April and May 2023, Luxembourg participated in the study with students in the 6th grade of classical and general secondary education, including the preparatory pathway as well as private and public international schools. The results compared to its first participation in 2018 have "improved significantly", which the ministry said confirms efforts to integrate digital skills into education.
The ministry noted that it has "invested heavily" in recent years in preparing young people for their professional and civic future in an increasingly digital society. Since 2020, the development of digital skills has been systematically included in school curricula. Coding was gradually introduced in primary education from the 2020/2021 school year. In secondary education, the Digital Sciences course was gradually integrated from the 2021/2022 school year and, since the start of the 2024 school year, all lower classes (7th-5th) have benefited from this course.
In 2018, when digital skills were not yet explicitly anchored in Luxembourg's education, Luxembourg's score in the ICILS study was below the average of the participating countries. The ministry added that the efforts of recent years now seem to be bearing fruit, as the results indicate. Among the 35 countries and regions that participated in ICILS 2023, Luxembourg managed to "significantly improve" its results compared to 2018, both in the field of computer and information literacy (CIL) and in computational thinking (CT). Luxembourg, along with Italy, was one of the only countries to have recorded an improvement between 2018 and 2023.
For the CIL domain, Luxembourg obtained a score of 494 points (higher than the ICILS average of 476 points) and ranks 17th out of 35 countries and regions. The score for CT was 476 points (slightly lower than the ICILS average of 483 points), with Luxembourg ranking 16th out of 23 countries and regions.
For Luxembourg's Minister of Education, Children and Youth, Claude Meisch, the results of ICILS 2023 illustrate the positive impact of Luxembourg's efforts to integrate digital skills into education: "The results are all the more promising since these initiatives were not yet fully measurable during the evaluation. Indeed, in 2023, not all 6th grade secondary school students had yet been able to fully benefit from the coding and digital sciences courses that were gradually being introduced into the school curriculum. However, the ambitions of a true 'IT nation' require that we go beyond these initial advances. It is essential to persevere in our efforts to sustainably strengthen our students' digital skills."
The Education Ministry stressed that the integration of digital skills into education goes beyond the purely technical skills required; it also includes the transmission of human and cognitive skills that will enable young people to "evolve serenely" in a digital society and to use digital media responsibly.
The ministry said it would continue its efforts to further strengthen the digital skills of young people as part of its "sécher.digital" strategy. These will be more firmly anchored in school curricula. The content of coding and the Digital Sciences course will be reviewed and adapted to technological progress and changes in society, particularly aspects related to artificial intelligence (AI). In primary education, collaboration between class teachers and teachers specialising in digital skills will be strengthened. Since 2020, the latter have been involved in the areas of continuing education and in education in and through the media and the implementation of related concepts.
ICILS is an international study carried out every five years by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).
