(Article updated on Wednesday, May 6 at 17:00 with responses from the education ministry).

There are several categories of teacher in Luxembourg, particularly at the primary school level. “There are those who have at least a bachelor’s degree, often in education sciences, who take the competitive examination to qualify for A2 status in the civil service. And then there are the state employees, who have a baccalaureate, who have B1 status and after about 60 hours of training become chargés de cours. They hold the same positions with the children at school but do not have the same benefits,” explains SEW/OGBL deputy central secretary Gilles Bestgen.

According to figures for the start of the 2024-2025 academic year, there are 813 chargés de cours in the grand duchy’s primary schools. They account for 12.6% of all primary school teachers (6,438). Six hundred and twenty-three are on permanent contracts contracts (appointed by the education ministry as “chargés membres de la réserve de suppléants”) and 190 are on fixed-term contracts (appointed as “chargés remplaçants”).

“Even for those on permanent contracts, the situation is not perfect. In terms of salary, a teacher with A2 status starts his or her career with a gross salary of €6,470, compared with €4,474 for a chargé de cours. Admittedly, they don’t have the same knowledge or the same diploma, but at the end of the day, they’re also teaching in front of children.”

Twelve years of fixed-term contracts

Contacted by Paperjam, the communications department of the education ministry responded that “in primary education, the use of fixed-term contracts is essential to meet specific needs, due to the temporary absence of teachers responsible for managing a class. These contracts also provide an opportunity for young people to explore the teaching profession as part of a career path, and to determine whether they wish to commit to it long-term.”

Teachers--employed as temporary or permanent replacements--can find themselves on one fixed-term contract after another. “We’ve already had a case of a person who’s been on one-year fixed-term contract after another for 12 years. It doesn't make sense.” As the Inspectorate of Labour and Mines explains, “a fixed-term contract may be renewed twice for a fixed period…and the duration of a fixed-term contract, including renewal and trial period, may not exceed 24 months.”

“But this law does not apply to chargés de cours,” complains Bestgen. “Chargés de cours are therefore trapped in a spiral of successive fixed-term contracts, which--because of an exception in the law on fixed-term contracts that has never been called into question--can be renewed endlessly. These precarious contracts, with no prospect of stability, place teachers in a situation of permanent financial and professional vulnerability.”

An exemption for the chargés de cours

The education ministry responds that “the labour code explicitly provides for an exemption [to these] provisions. Thus, employment contracts for, among others, chargés de cours can be renewed more than twice, even for a total duration exceeding 24 months, without being considered as open-ended employment contracts.”

Teachers on fixed-term contracts can access a permanent contract after three years, once they have passed the civil service training course. “But if they fail, they run the risk of being made redundant. Why not give them a permanent contract without the traineeship, given that they have been doing a very good job for three years?” asks the deputy central secretary of SEW/OGBL. “This lack of recognition of their work and expertise is unacceptable. Instead of offering a stable and respectful working environment, the education ministry continues to exploit this precarious workforce, when there is no shortage of work.”

Here again, the education ministry responds that “within the framework of these fixed-term contracts, regularisations are carried out regularly. Over the past three years, 138 agents who had accumulated three consecutive contracts and requested a permanent contract from the competent services of the ministry of education, children and youth have benefited from a permanent contract. According to the experience of the services responsible for recruiting the agents in question, some of these agents deliberately opt for a fixed-term contract status, because they are considering alternative career prospects in other fields and thus wish to maintain a certain flexibility,” justifies the ministry. It adds that no exemption from the general principle of the civil service internship is currently planned, as requested by the SEW/OGBL.

Impossible to move from employee to civil servant status

“Even those who get a permanent contract will never be able to access A2 civil servant status until they have at least a bachelor’s degree, even if they speak the country’s three administrative languages. This used to be the case, but not any more. There’s no real political will to change things, even though our relations with the civil service ministries and the education ministry are very good,” adds Bestgen.

According to the civil service website, state employees can be admitted to state civil servant status under four conditions, such as having “completed at least 15 years of service, full-time or part-time, from the date of engagement with the state as an employee,” or having “passed the career test.” But again, “this does not work for the teaching sector.”

Wrong, answers the ministry, which explains that “different salary/benefit groups within the state require different access conditions in terms of minimum educational requirements. To access a job in group A2, candidates must hold a bachelor's degree or its equivalent. The principle of civil service status does not change this.”

Progress in recent years

Another point raised by the SEW/OGBL in its press release issued on 6 May is the delays in payment suffered by newly recruited employees. Some are not paid for several months after taking up their duties, due to incomplete files, the impossibility of getting an appointment with the examining doctor, etc. “But the education ministry makes them work for months before they are paid,” says the union. “These late payments jeopardise their financial stability and their daily lives. This situation is not only degrading but also unworthy of a public service.”

The SEW is therefore calling for an end to the exception in the law relating to fixed-term contracts and the introduction of a “stable working framework for chargés de cours” and “respect for payment deadlines for all teachers, so that they can be paid on time for their work. For this to happen, their administrative file must be in order before they start work at their new post.”

Bestgen is pleased, however, “that there has been progress in recent years for chargés de cours. Previously, one-year fixed-term contracts ended at the end of the school year and started again on 15 September. These teachers therefore had no contract during the two-month holiday period, and no social protection. We managed to get the fixed-term contracts to run for a full year, so that there would be no ‘summer gap.’”

This article was originally published in .