During the 2020 school summer break, the Up Foundation had contact with over 1,000 children and young people in Luxembourg Up Foundation

During the 2020 school summer break, the Up Foundation had contact with over 1,000 children and young people in Luxembourg Up Foundation

The pandemic has had the largest disruption of education systems in history, the United Nations wrote in its August 2020 policy brief. While there are no official figures measuring its impact on learners in Luxembourg, in neighbouring Germany, a quarter of young people are expected to fall behind a year or quit.

“I think that Luxembourg will be the same,” said founder and director of the Luxembourg Up Foundation Liz Kremer Rauchs, adding: “Either they will redo the year, or they will fall behind and the gap will get bigger between disadvantaged young people and young people from wealthier families.”

While huge efforts were made to ensure young people had appropriate digital tools to follow homeschooling programmes, not all parents had the possibility to monitor their children, producing mixed results.

The Toto bus is pictured in Esch-sur-Alzette during the summer of 2020. Photo: Up Foundation

The Luxembourg chapter of global citizen’s platform the Up Foundation was founded in 2018 in response to an already challenged educational system. “60% of the children at school in Luxembourg are of foreign origin. They don’t speak Luxembourgish or French at home and it’s really a challenge for the school system,” said Rauchs-Kremer who, until 2017, was head of division for the education ministry’s innovation department. “The pandemic has accentuated these challenges in education […] Our big work started during the pandemic, where we felt we urgently needed to come to their aid.”

Toto bus, educational landscapes & tandems

The local chapter sprang into action, responding with a number of initiatives, the most visible being the Toto bus, helping young people to be heard. The team drove to public areas in 10 towns around the country to hear stories from residents. The second stage saw it film children and young people expressing themselves creatively. “During this pandemic we talk a lot about the youth, but we never speak with them,” the director said. The creations were exhibited in the Luxembourg City Museum and in a third phase the exhibition will tour the country during spring. “Every town will add a project for its children,” the founder said.

According to the UN, globally, some 23.8m children and young people could drop out as a result and pre-existing education gaps risk worsening for the most vulnerable. Photo: Up Foundation

Another project, dubbed educational landscapes, involves bringing together existing players in education, to support young learners in their personal development. “We saw that schools can’t cope, the challenges are so huge, we need a village to educate a child,” said Rauchs Kremer. Following a model developed in countries including Switzerland, the idea is to strengthen networks and partnerships.

Members of the public can, meanwhile, get involved with a tandem scheme to be launched after the Easter vacation. Adults are encouraged to become buddies, to support a young person falling behind in their education, to “not only give lessons or coaching, but also open doors and showing them things, that’s where we’re looking for volunteers,” said Rauchs Kremer. For this project, the foundation is working with the socio emotional centre, a new specialised learning centre to help children and young people who drop out.

The last major project is Design for Change, a scheme encouraging young people to become actors of change by establishing their own solidarity project. Already piloted in three schools, the foundation will this year train teachers and monitors to become multipliers for this method.