This survey was produced by the school on 12/05/2003:
Why are costs of the vertical split in Luxembourg much, much higher than horizontal alternative
The costs of the vertical split decision in Luxembourg are much, much higher than the horizontal alternative and result in poorer education. These costs include:
- The costs of daily supervised transport and surveillance of school premise
s that are not designed for young children (lack of enclosure, multiple sets of steps, confusing and anonymous lay-out). The cost of all this supervision would easily outweigh, in less than one year, the costs of adapting the two schools to a horizontal reorganisation. - The costs of requiring two headmasters in each school and the complicated administration required to provide for children from infancy to adulthood, all within the same school.
- The cost to the EU institutions that results from obliging half of its parental staff to make unnecessary commutes across the city, and the cost that arises when it becomes difficult to recruit or keep staff because of the discriminatory schooling problem that has been created.
- The cost to the parents in terms of lost income, as many have taken reduced working hours to compensate for the time lost in commuting. Also the cost of petrol and bus fares that are not reimbursed.
- The cost to the environment and to the local government resulting from all the additional, unnecessary carbon emissions that result from the private transport that is needed to transport young children to Mamer.
- The cost to the children resulting from the poor education that has resulted from the intervention of property developers in the decision-making process. Those children are now more tired, less safe, have less language and subject options and will eventually wonder why they were discriminated against.
The difference between European school in Luxembourg and Brussels
No European School in Brussels has any significant advantage over any other European School there, which explains why no actions based on discrimination have been brought there.
To recreate what is happening here in a Brussels context, this is what you would have to do:
- Take a European School that has operated effectively for 60 years, on the same site and without vertical split discrimination – a school that has had successful experiments with horizontal division in the past. Then divide that school according to linguistic and residential address criteria, so that one is located exactly beside the EU institutions, perhaps near the Schuman metro, where most of the relevant parents work – this is ‘Brussels I’.
- ‘Brussels II’ is located outside of the city in a protected green zone. The relevant land is owned by supporters of the Belgian government. That new Brussels II development is carried out on a Natura 2000 zone without any environmental impact assessment, either before or during construction. The reduced environmental hazards of a horizontal split, which requires less private transporting of young children, are systematically ignored.
- This vertical split is carried out at the insistence of the host Member State only and in spite of a veto by Italy. It is carried out in spite of protests by the parents concerned and with the exclusive objective of promoting the private interests of property developers.
- EU Commission creche and after-school care facilities for Brussels II are also located at this site outside of the city, in contravention of the Decision of the Member States of 8 April 1965, confirmed in Edinburgh in 1992. They will therefore be of very limited use to the parents for whom they are intended.
- The favoured Brussels I school is reserved essentially for Nordic EU workers (who speak Finnish and its neighbouring languages), essentially because the deputy head master and future General Secretary of the Board of Governors is Finnish. The disfavoured Brussels II school is for EU workers from the south east of Europe, most of whom were not represented at the time of the vertical split decision.
- A category of ‘vehicular’ children (EN, FR and DE) must then be created to blur the ethnic discrimination. These children are divided into Brussels I and Brussels II according to a discriminatory residential criterion, so that the better off, who can afford to live close to the institutions, can use the Brussels I school. All the rest are assigned to Brussels II.
- The local authorities lead the school authorities and the EU authorities and the parents concerned to believe that a flyover and a tunnel will be built to serve the Brussels II school. In fact it is built to serve a cité that is to be built behind the school, the plans for which are concealed until after the school has been opened. This concealed development plan relies on the vertical division of European School school children, to force parents to move to the town-land bordering on the protected green zone outside the city. Those parents, some of whom have already been persuaded and bullied into moving to the out-of-town location, are now a risk of negative equity due to the effect of the concealed development – on top of all the other disadvantages of being assigned to Brussels II. They were advised by the school authorities that they had to move there to make the schooling of their children manageable, which it does not.
This discrimination does not exist in Brussels and would not be accepted there.
European School Discrimination Hearing, 12 November 2012
On 12 November 2012, the European School Non-Discrimination Campaign (ESNDC) will present a case to the European School Complaints Board alleging discrimination against European School II (Luxembourg) parents on grounds of language, nationality, ethnicity, property status and sex.
Are you a parent of a child (or children) who has been assigned to the European School II in Mamer? Has this had a negative impact on your life or that of your child/children?
If so, we would like to hear from you by Tuesday 6 November. We are looking for a brief, 1-page statement of the problems you are experiencing. These are some that have been raised:
- Additional time spent commuting children to and from school.
- Income lost due to the need to work less hours as a result of the longer commutes.
- Tiredness of children due to longer commutes and the need to get up earlier.
- Loss of contact with teachers and educators.
- Inability to accompany younger children to extra-curricular activities.
- The cost of additional transport, often not re-imbursed.
- Concerns about the safety of children travelling unaccompanied by rail and bus.
- Loss of language options and of other subject options.
- Safety and suitability of the school premises at Mamer – lack of enclosure, exposure to car parks, multiple flights of steps (externally and internally) and the clinical, anonymous feel, particularly for young children.
- Inability to live close to the school due to inflated property prices.
- The discovery that moving closer to Mamer does not solve the problem, but makes it worse. EU workers now find themselves with less cash, stuck in the worst peak-hour traffic they have ever experienced and still having no contact with the school.
- For parents forced by the Mamer issue to withdraw their children from the European School system – difficulties integrating with the national systems, cost of private school or creche, loss of right to education in one’s national language.
- Absence of free alternatives for children who do not speak French or German.
- Concerns about noise, traffic, disruption and real property devaluation that will be caused by the huge housing development planned behind the school (http://www.mamer.lu/pag).
The ESNDC is demanding a reorganisation of the schooling structure that treats all EU workers and their children equally, regardless of nationality or residential address. Common sense, equality and environmental concerns dictate that all crèche, maternelle and primary school facilities should be located in Kirchberg. The Mamer site should be reserved for all secondary school children, who require less supervision and private transport. This will also ensure a better range of language and subject options. To send your 1-page statement on how being assigned to the European School II in Mamer has prejudiced you, contact:
ESNDC administration: info@europeanschooluxembourg2.eu
Website: https://europeanschooluxembourg2.eu/
The ESNDC have confirmed that the group is preparing to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, should this become necessary.
Large part of them suffer physically and psychologically…
Bonjour,
Je suis navre de ne pouvoir assister demain a la reunion sur la “discrimination scolaire”.
Je precise que je suis un parent non fonctionnaire, la Maman de mon fils l’etant.
Mon anglais etant un peu succint, je prefere m exprimer en francais.
Aussi, si en lisant vos mails en anglais je n’ai pas compris que les quelques idees que je vous presente ont déjà ete prises en consideration, vous voudrez bien m en excuser.
Je suggere que l’ association, ou une autre, qui pourrait etre la soeur de la premiere, revendique aupres de l’Union europeenne l’INDEMNISATION DE LA FATIGUE QUOTIDIENNE DES ENFANTS.
Une grande partie d’entre eux subissent un grave prejudice physique, psychologique et pour la qualite de leurs etudes puisqu ils sont obliges d’etre transportes jusqu a 2 heures par jour (depart des avant 8 heures maintenant depuis la gare par exemple), entre differents quartiers de Luxembourg et du Grand Duche vers l’ecole Lux II, puis vers le Kirchberg et enfin retour individuel dans differents domiciles eloignes du plateau.
Une autre INDEMNISATION DE DEMENAGEMENT devrait etre attribuee aux parents, nombreux, qui se sentiront forces de demenager a proximite de Lux II.
Je propose que 3 groupes de travail soient formes sur ces themes.
Le 1er pourrait demander
a des specialistes de mesurer l impact de ces transports et de cette fatigue sur nos enfants.
Le 2eme pourrait notamment suivre les consequences en termes de cout du logement, de hausse des prix des terrains et du m2 habitable dans les communes environnant Lux II.
Le 3eme pourrait controler l’historique et les interets particuliers qui ont conduit a cette decision incroyable de construire Lux II a Mamer plutot qu’au Kirchberg.
Merci de diffuser ces propositions, si elles retiennent votre attention.
Bien cordialement,
Alain Marschallik
Envoyé par mon BlackBerry Wireless Handheld.
Contact: amarschallik@aol.fr