Open letter from the SEW/OGBL, the Landesverband and AMELUX to the CSV and DP in the context of the coalition negotiations

Luxembourg, October 19, 2023

Dear representatives of CSV and DP,

We would like to draw your attention to some of the key demands of the SEW/OGBL, the Landesverband and AMELUX regarding education policy and ask you to include them in the coalition negotiations.

As the working group on education policy will unfortunately take place without consulting the professional associations concerned, we ask you to at least listen to the concerns of teachers.

We would like to draw your attention to the following points:

• Multilingualism is an insurmountable obstacle for a growing number of students. Instead of critically analyzing and rethinking language teaching from cycle 1 to 1ère as a whole, French literacy has been launched as a pilot project. In our opinion, this isolated measure does not go far enough. The SEW/OGBL calls for a coherent approach to language teaching, from childcare all the way through to secondary school. The weighting of languages and the flexibility of language teaching should provide more educational opportunities.
• The SEW/OGBL warns against the creation of parallel school systems to counter educational inequality. At present, there are six different school systems from primary school onwards: the public European schools with their different language sections, the primary school of the Lycée Michel Lucius, which offers the British system, and French and German literacy in regular schools. This fragmentation is even more pronounced in secondary schools. The SEW/OGBL warns of the consequences of this fragmentation of the educational landscape, as it mainly benefits the socially better-off families and will exacerbate rather than reduce educational inequalities. Instead, the SEW/OGBL calls for the current model of multilingualism in public schools to be reconsidered on the basis of a critical analysis. We believe that a common public school is essential for social cohesion and integration. We therefore call for the strengthening of the public comprehensive school so that every student, regardless of his or her background, can find his or her place in it.
• The SEW/OGBL demands that the Luxembourg Ministry of Education commits itself at European level to the introduction of a European section in the public European schools, adapted to the specific needs of our country. This section should prioritize the learning of French, German and Luxembourgish and thus allow for transitions (“passerelles”) to the traditional school system. This would offer a maximum choice of educational opportunities to those pupils who cannot meet the performance requirements of the European schools. Such a section should then also be offered as a priority in all public European schools in order to promote integration and social cohesion.
• National legislation must also be respected in public European schools. Many administrators of public European schools interpret their status as an accredited European school as a free pass to circumvent national laws. This abuse ranges from unpaid overtime during teacher training to the regular use of inadequately qualified teachers in secondary education. Due to the fact that primary and secondary schools are under the same management, teachers with a Master’s degree are often hired to teach at the primary level at salary grade A2 and then transferred to the secondary level without their salary grade being adjusted to reflect the work they are doing.
• Luxembourg has taken the path of inclusion by signing the relevant UN Convention. However, many teachers complain that they are unable to cope with the heterogeneity of their classes. Schools lack the necessary resources and the procedural effort is enormous. As SEW/OGBL, we demand that the procedure be simplified so that pupils can benefit from challenging and supportive measures more quickly. We need a multidisciplinary team in schools to be able to react efficiently and quickly.
• The Second Education Report has once again clearly shown that social background has a decisive influence on the educational opportunities of students. None of the measures taken so far have been able to stop this trend. In order to guarantee better educational opportunities, we need the necessary resources. As SEW/OGBL, we demand that the “quota” be adjusted upwards so that we can do justice to the heterogeneity of the classes. Schools with a low socio-economic status must be systematically supported so that the social divide does not widen further.
• The SEW/OGBL also calls for a revision of the reform of the “Cycle inférieur” in the ESG.

The promotion criteria should be made more comprehensible and therefore more transparent for students.

At the national level, we call for mandatory external differentiation of “Cours de base” and “Cours avancé”.

For “Cours de base” and “Cours avancé”, minimum requirements must be defined that students must achieve in order to progress. This is to prevent students from being automatically promoted from the 7ème to the 5ème despite an enormous learning backlog, only to have their access to numerous sections blocked at the end of the 5ème due to precisely this learning backlog.

• The SEW/OGBL continues to oppose the extension of compulsory schooling to 18 years. The causes of early school leaving must be tackled much earlier in the school career with preventive measures, such as an upwardly adjusted “quota” in primary schools and smaller classes in secondary schools, as well as the removal of administrative hurdles in relation to specific support measures, which the pupils concerned often receive too late.
• The SEW/OGBL also calls for free study materials for vocational students and free copies for all secondary school students.
• Vocational education must be upgraded and the lower cycle of secondary education in the ESG must be extended by one year, as has long been the case in the ESC. The DAP should be nominally upgraded to be called “Première professionnelle” and provide access to the master craftsman’s certificate, which should be raised to level 6 of the national qualifications framework. Apprentice salaries will be harmonized and will be at least 80% of the unqualified minimum wage before the PII and at least 100% of the unqualified minimum wage after the PII.
• Teaching assistants (chargés de cours), known as chargés de cours, have done valuable work in the past. However, many of them are in a precarious situation due to the succession of fixed-term contracts (CDD). The SEW/OGBL, together with the national federation, is demanding that lecturers be automatically offered a permanent contract (CDI) after their second fixed-term contract, in accordance with the Labour Code. In addition, we demand that teaching assistants also benefit from the so-called “age deduction”. In primary schools, they should also be given the opportunity to train as teachers while working. We also demand better protection against dismissal for lecturers.
• For part-time secondary school teachers, the SEW/OGBL demands a revision of the mutation procedure. In the future, part-time teachers should have the same rights to transfer as full-time teachers. This would strengthen equality as more female teachers work part-time.
• The 36/52 correction coefficient for overtime must be abolished. Overtime worked throughout the year due to teacher shortages must be paid the same as regular school hours.
• The previous government promised to establish vocational training at higher education level in Luxembourg. The SEW/OGBL welcomes this in principle, but would like to be involved in the relevant discussions. In general, it must be ensured that the diplomas to be developed are recognized both nationally and internationally. There is also room for improvement in the BTS, and the SEW/OGBL advocates a “régime concomitant” at this level as well.
• In recent years, investment in higher education and research has slowed down compared to previous years and is now well below the price trend. The SEW/OGBL demands that budget allocations at least be adjusted for inflation. The existing four-year plans of the university and the public research centers are to be corrected in this sense in the upcoming mid-term review.
• In the last coalition agreement, the previous government announced its intention to counteract the precariousness of young researchers in particular. The opposite has happened, and the percentage of fixed-term contracts has actually increased. The SEW/OGBL calls on the new government to take countermeasures and to increase the share of permanent contracts in the four-year contracts.
• The SEW/OGBL calls for the introduction of a mechanism to link salary developments in universities and public research centres to those in the civil service, preferably in the form of global negotiations for the entire public sector, in which the OGBL, as the majority union in several of the sectors concerned, must be involved.

Thank you for your attention to our letter.

Best regards,

Joëlle Damé, President of the SEW/OGBL
Vera Dockendorf, Spokesperson of the SEW/OGBL Secondaire
Marvin Caldarella Weis, Spokesperson of the SEW/OGBL Fondamental
Michel Reuter, Spokesperson of the SEW/OGBL Secondaire
Isabelle Bichler, President of the section “Chargés de cours” Landesverband
Christian Turk, President of AMELUX
Frédéric Krier, Central Secretary of the SEW/OGBL
Gilles Bestgen, Deputy Central Secretary of the SEW/OGBL