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Question for written answer to the Commission

Gregor Prajs
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5 Slovenian MEPs: Tanja Fajon (S&D) , Jelko Kacin (ALDE) , Alojz Peterle (PPE) , Ivo Vajgl (ALDE) and Milan Zver (PPE) sent question to the Commission.

Subject: As a result of the increase in the number of pupils at the European School in Luxembourg (Luxembourg 1), a new school (Luxembourg 2) has been built in the suburb of Mamer/Bertrange, causing numerous organizational problems

Answer(s)

1. TRANSPORT. Public transport links are poor and no transport has been organised for the youngest children. Children can travel unaccompanied on public transport only from the age of 12; before that they are taken by their parents. For those parents and their young children in the new school that means spending approximately two hours a day on the road.

2. ORGANISATION OF AFTER SCHOOL CARE. After rschool care has been arranged next to the Luxembourg 2 school (at the CPE V facility), but there is no possibility for the children concerned to attend after school care closer to the place where their parents work (i.e. at CPE III in Kirchberg). The parents will therefore have to leave work much earlier in order to collect their children on time, despite the fact that the purpose of after school care is to ease the burden on the parents.

Children were allocated to the two schools on the basis of nationality/language, partly taking into account the place of residence of the biggest language groups. Children from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Portugal and Bulgaria are in Luxembourg 1. Children who speak Italian, Greek, Danish, Hungarian, Czech, Romanian, Slovak, Maltese, Irish and Slovene were allocated to Luxembourg 2. Both schools have English, French and German sections. When the Luxembourg 2 school was being built the idea of a horizontal split (primary level at one school and secondary level at the other), which is the standard way of organising education in national systems, was rejected on account of the cost of refitting the buildings, although it has many advantages, and, above all, the difficulties caused by the distance of Luxembourg 2 from Kirchberg, where Luxembourg 1 is located, would be shared equally among all Member States/families.

Can the Commission please indicate:

When it will carry out an analysis of the school system in Luxembourg which takes full account of the benefits and costs of a horizontal split?

How it intends to help parents of children at the Luxembourg 2 school? When can we expect after school care to be arranged closer to the place of work and when can an agreement be expected on the organisation of transport and the reimbursement of the costs involved?

Luxembourg government declines to pay for the transport

Gregor Prajs
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When Luxembourg decided that they would build a new European school Luxembourg 2 in the middle of nowhere, they promised to provide transport for students attending new school. But now they decline to pay for any transport (from last meeting on 28.6.2012).

According to law of 29 June 2004 on public transport, the Ministry of Transport assumes responsibility for all transport exceeding the limit of the territory of one municipality.

This is a copy from Session ordinaire 2007-2008:

“7. Infrastructures de transport
7.1. Transports publics et scolaires
Desserte future du site par les transports en commun

Conformément à une décision du Gouvernement, l’Etat assure une prise en charge des transports par autobus et par trains des élèves fréquentant la deuxième Ecole européenne à Bertrange/Maamer, sur base d’un programme à développer.

En vertu de la loi modifiée du 29 juin 2004 sur les transports publics, le Ministère des Transports assure la responsabilité pour tous les transports réguliers organisés par les soins de ses services et dépassant la limite du territoire d’une seule commune.

Quant aux modalités de l’organisation des transports spécifiques pour l’Ecole européenne à Bertrange/
Mamer, il y aura lieu d’en définir les besoins réels au niveau des horaires et des tracés à partir du moment où les détails y relatifs seront suffisamment connus.

Il est entendu que l’organisation des transports en commun sera préparée en étroite collaboration avec la Direction et avec l’Association des Parents d’Elèves de l’Ecole européenne. Il est également souhaitable que le fonctionnement de ce transport puisse s’intégrer dans le réseau actuel des lignes publiques nationales.”

You can read the whole document here.

Did the European Commission intentionally wanted to divide the opposition and conquer

Gregor Prajs
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This is a letter to Maria de Macado CLP COMM and was written 9 years ago.

Please note that the reference to Parents Association Management, refers to the people who had been in place at the top of the APEEE, just before 2003, not the current President or Management Committee.

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Dear Maria,

I am writing this letter to ask the Commission Local Staff Committee to urgently organise a general assembly of officials to discuss the options for splitting up the European school in Luxembourg. The staff committees in the European parliament and the Court of Justice have organised such meetings and they have passed resolutions asking for a horizontal split of the school, with the secondary school to be based in Mamer.

I have worked on the Equal opportunities committee in Eurostat for several years and I know for a fact that Eurostat has problems recruiting officials who pass competitions and have young children, to come and work here because the social facilities are worse than in Brussels. If they also have to drive their young children out to Mamer each morning and then collect them in the afternoon then they definitely will not come to work in the Commission in Luxembourg.

I am also a member of the management committee of the parent’s association in the school. From my contacts there I have discovered that the option of an Horizontal split was presented to the Board of Governors meeting in Shannon ( Ireland ) by a member of the Interparents association ( Helene Skikos ) and this presentation was well received. The majority of member states were quite impressed. However, the directors and inspectors were against, mainly since they will have a lot of work to do if a decision is taken to create a separate Secondary school. The many advantages to this way of splitting the school include: cost savings, easier to create classes for minority languages, easier to create a vocational option for those children not wishing to follow a classical education and go to university.

It seems to me that the school here in Luxembourg has only informed the parents about one option. It is also clear that the parent’s association never made any attempt to inform parent’s of children in the CPE, gardarie, crèche, maternelle and lower years in primary ( i.e. those who will be affected by this decision as it will take 5 years to build the school ) and get feedback from these parents, before ‘representing’ these parents on the steering committee.

Please can you ensure that this issue is raised as soon as possible at a meeting of the staff committee and that an assembly general or referendum is organised. Maybe there is a ‘hidden agenda’ here. Perhaps by splitting the school into 2 different locations, putting different nationalities against each other, putting parents against each other, the Commission, as with Mr Kinnock’s reform, intentionally wants to divide the opposition and conquer.

Best regards,

Gerard Hanney

No Emergency Access to European School Luxembourg 2

Gregor Prajs
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There is NO emergency access if the route d’Arlon is blocked (which is most of the day). It is impossible for the firemen vehicles or an ambulance to reach the school. That is very worrying!!!6513661 traffic jam

They suggested that the rural-cycling path should be used as an alternative.  I don’t think this is a proper solution.

« EE2 demande si des moyens d’accès alternatifs, tel que la piste cyclable venant de Bertrange, ont été prévus pour le cas où la route principal est bouchonnée. Les pompiers n’ont pas prévu d’utiliser la piste cyclable comme moyen d’accès alternatif.”

New EE2 Luxembourg – The school that nobody wants!

Gregor Prajs
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New EE2 Luxembourg – The school that nobody wants!

So finally we had the opportunity to see the new 010European school Luxembourg 2. It supposed to be a pleasant visit to an already finished school and we should all get to know where our kids will spend most of the days.

Unfortunately we were queuing even before we came to the parking place. Since parking was already full when we came security guards asked us to park at Lycee parking around 200m from the school.002

It really was a construction site as school administration warned us the day before. I don’t think they will be able to finish the school till 4. September 2012. Especially not if you know that whole construction sector has 4 weeks off in August.

Some observations and other parents’ comments:

  1. Playgrounds and recreational space are much smaller (less than 50 %?) than in the existing schools (any of them). No legal requirement on the size of playgrounds and numbers/ages of children?
  2. No sand pit in nursery?
  3. Swimming pools are fully booked from the start of the year (last years of primary will only be swimming 1/2 of the school year) – what happens when the school is full?012
  4. Stairs call for accidents. How will they be prevented? Lots and lots of stairs…
  5. Classrooms are adapted to Lux law – up to 23 children, and EU schools have a maximum of 30 children?! In my son’s class there are 26…All the schools and CPE will have to share one football and one basketball pitch???!!!
  6. CPE is a special case since it does not have any recreational facilities (indoors or outdoors). In the crèche for instance I haven’t noticed a sand pit, they have one swing, and garderie has (from what I could see) no gym and Study Centre has any football/basketball pitch… Canteen is shared so I expect children in garderie (3-4 years) will have to share the canteen with primary and secondary? (I do hope that is a mistake)

The buildings are in general very impressive, but we should see in the first few months, if they are also functional.

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