On Monday morning, teachers' union Féduse issued a press release to address a number of problems across Luxembourgish schools, some of which have only increased over the past year that was dominated by the pandemic.

The statement particularly highlights a series of issues in the lower classes of the "Secondaire général" high schools. The union laments that since the academic year 2017/2018, a reform has led to every pupil passing automatically without having to display a "serious minimum of knowledge and skills". However, this means that once they reach the orientation stage in year four, they very often lack the necessary grades to pursue their interests.

Féduse concludes that the reform thus acts against the best interests of parents and students, who are blinded by false assessments: "Mr minister, there are definitely better ways to promote and motivate young people!"

Although union president Raoul Scholtes acknowledges that the system in place before the reform was too exigent, he still advocates for a certain amount of strictness. In an interview with RTL, Scholtes stated: "We appreciate that with the reform, students are assessed according to their strengths, not weaknesses. However, that does not mean that the latter ones should be ignored altogether. Like almost everyone, pupils need incentives to perform, otherwise they do not invest any time at all. Before the pandemic, we reached out to the Ministry of Education to come together and work out the devil in the details. But they refused, claiming that everything is working perfectly fine."

The teachers' union thus makes it clear that they will no longer accept false promises of addressing the issue once the pandemic is over. Instead, they advocate for the creation of a task force to tackle the problem head on.

Minister of Education Claude Meisch has reportedly responded to the above-mentioned request by stating that currently, all energy needs to be channelled into dealing with the pandemic.