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Luxembourg MPs have questioned the transparency and handling of reports on the ALPHA literacy pilot

The reports on the ALPHA literacy project were presented to the education committee on Tuesday. But the questions raised centred less on the substance of the reports than on the procedure, since MPs disagreed with the way it had been handled. The opposition criticised the embargo placed on the scientific report from the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), finding the decision hard to understand. The ministry responded that no one had been instructed not to publish anything, and that it was simply a matter of waiting until all the reports were available together. For Djuna Bernard of the Greens, one point was especially important:

"We have to prevent the doubts being raised about the reform from being further reinforced by a lack of transparency, or by the kind of moves we've seen over the past few months."
Bernard also deemed incomprehensible that the peer review had not been included among the documents requested by the Chamber, meaning MPs had had to retrieve it themselves from the university's website. According to her, this certainly did not help matters when it came to transparency. Luc Weis of the Education ministry replied that the ministry itself had only received the document the previous Friday, and did not have time to include it in the 340 pages containing the other reports made public on Monday.

For Sven Clement of the Pirates, many questions remain unanswered. On one hand, it is argued that too few children took part in the LUCET study for any conclusions to be drawn; on the other hand, conclusions have been drawn from it regardless:
"It's a bit like Pippi Longstocking: I build myself a world to suit my needs, deciding one day that I like it, the next that I don't. When it doesn't suit me, I ignore the data and say it isn't enough. It's rather strange that when we're talking about scientific data – and about the only quantitative study we actually have here, not just the qualitative ones, which make up everything else – we still have to ask how such categorical statements can be made when they simply don't follow from the figures."

Also today

• A new unified recruitment system for state jobs is to be introduced from September, requiring both civil servants and state employees to pass the same aptitude exam
• Luxembourg's farmers are facing growing pressure from the prolonged dry spell, with crops already showing clear signs of water stress and concerns mounting over the months ahead
• Tommy Schlesser, renowned for his roles in film and TV, has been appointed as the new Télévie coordinator
• The EU has approved plans to continue developing a digital euro, with a possible launch in 2029
• Health workers fighting the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo are threatening to strike over unpaid wages, as the World Health Organization warned the extent of the epidemic could be four times larger than reported
• EU lawmakers have demanded that a "youth mode" for children on social media platforms be introduced in which addictive features and targeted advertising are turned off

On air

The studio is getting World Cup Semi Final fever, with the first game this evening at 9PM: France v Spain.

Figure of the day

Firefighters were called to eight separate blazes across Luxembourg between Monday evening and early Tuesday morning.

• Shortly after 5pm, firefighters in Luxembourg City were called to Avenue Jean-Pierre Pescatore in Ville Haute of Luxembourg City, where a hedge had caught fire.
• Further incidents followed throughout the evening. Shortly after 6.30pm, a fire broke out in a sauna on Rue des Thermes in Strassen, prompting firefighters from Bertrange and Mamer to attend and extinguish the blaze.

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