The second leg of the education reform targets the “general secondary education” branch, formerly known as “secondary technical education”.

Claude Meisch, education minister, said at a press conference on Tuesday 7 February that the reform aimed to diversify the school offer by giving more autonomy to the schools.

The principle of multilingualism is maintained, but students can from now on choose between two levels of French and German.

French at basic or advanced level

In those sections where courses are held in German in fourth and third grade, French will be offered at basic or advanced level and German will be taught only at advanced level. This will be applied to all sections, except for the administrative and commercial section, where French will only be taught at advanced level.

All sections will progressively also be offered in French as the main teaching language, in addition to the current offer in German. In those sections, German can be studied at a basic level.

The changes intend to ease student progression, because many students had to repeat a year because they were not good enough in one language or another.

New sections in schools

The minister also announced that three new sections would be opened in some schools to prepare for “the jobs of the future”.

A new section at the Lycée technique d’Ettelbruck will teach environmental sciences from 2018-2019 onwards, starting at grade 2.

“Architecture, design and sustainable development” (A3D) will be offered at the Lycée Josy Barthel in Mamer, which will start in fourth grade.

The Lycée technique hôtelier Alexis Heck in Diekirch will create a section for “hospitality management”, starting next year in grade 2, and in 2019-2020 will start in grade 4.

The social sciences sections will start already in fourth grade in several schools, depending on the demand. Health sciences, which is geared towards non-clinical health professions, will be offered from grade 2 onwards, instead of 1.

Exam changes

The number of exams has been whittled down to 6, so that students can prepare better for the core subjects. There will be two oral exams in addition to written exams. These changes will be implemented in 2019.

The final diploma will have an additional document mentioning the marks of the students in all subjects from the final year (and subjects studied in grade 2, but without the marks), which allows students to provide better information to universities regarding high school performance.