Shortly before the end of the school year, final year students in high school take their final exams.

These exams are not just administered or graded by a single teacher, but involve multiple parties. This means that teachers handling a graduating class have more marking and more exams to oversee during this period.

Therefore, those on exam boards are entitled to a general indemnity, according to the Ministry of Education. With the exception of the first 25 exam copies from their own students, teachers are also entitled to an indemnity per graded exam copy. This applies from the 26th student copy onward in their own class, and for copies from students in other schools where they are performing the second or third correction.

What do these additional indemnities look like?

This depends on the length of the exam. If the exam is under two hours, markers are entitled to €7,27 per graded copy. If the exam is between two and three hours, it's €8,03. For any exam over three hours, markers are entitled to an allowance of €8,50.

Similar allowances are offered for oral exams as well. Again, the first 25 students from a teacher's own class are included in the normal indemnity. For each additional oral exam, teachers are entitled to an extra €8,03 per exam.

If teachers are part of an exam board, they are also entitled to an additional 98.50 euros per board meeting.

The Ministry of Education is not yet able to share the exact cost of marking the 2024 exams. This figure will be determined once all examination procedures are completed, which will not happen before autumn. The cost for last year's exams is still being calculated.

Teacher remuneration was not the only question posed by RTL to the Ministry of Education. According to information RTL received, there was an error in a sociology paper.

No disadvantage to students 

Last year, final year students needed additional information during their sociology exam due to an error in the questionnaire. "One question referred to the evolution of age demographics of the Luxembourgish population over two different time periods. While the title clearly mentioned two separate periods, both sub-questions referred to the same period and were thus identical," the Ministry of Education explained.

The school administrations reported this to the exam board members, who then communicated the correct information to the affected schools. Students received clear guidance on the time periods for the sub-questions, ensuring they were not disadvantaged in the exam.

The overall results of the exams will be published in the national statistics at the beginning of July.

For the 2023/2024 school year, the marking of all final exams had a budget of €847,295, including the autumn session, according to the Ministry of Education.