More French and English classrooms will be opened for the European school’s primary level. Romain Gamba/Maison Moderne

More French and English classrooms will be opened for the European school’s primary level. Romain Gamba/Maison Moderne

The grand duchy’s sixth public European school, signed off by parliament in June 2022, will increase its capacity to adapt to the high enrolment demand predicted for the years to come.  

The Gaston Thorn European school in Luxembourg City is meant to help cope with the large number of pupils who don’t speak Luxembourg’s official languages. Like the other European public schools, it will follow the system of having different language sections, as practiced in the schools affiliated to the European institutions. But unlike the European schools in Mamer and Kirchberg, it is free of charge and open to all pupils in Luxembourg.

But, a month ahead of the start of the academic year, the school already has to review its structure and plan an expansion, as school director Jessy Medinger told national radio station 100,7 on 2 August.


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Nine classrooms--two more than planned--will be added on the primary school level to meet the demand for English and French sections. Due to a lack in demand, the German section for primary school students will be cut instead. In the secondary school, a classroom for German-speaking students--mainly Luxembourgers not at ease with learning in French--will be opened.

The European school system allows students to follow core classes in German, English or French. Some of the schools in Luxembourg also offer language sections in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. Nearly 5,000 students are already attending European public schools in Luxembourg, a number meant to grow to 6,000 at the start of the school year.