European Public School Report 2023: Preliminary results on student population, educational trajectories, mathematics achievement, and stakeholder perceptions

• Luxembourg is a highly diverse country in terms of the socioeconomic, sociocultural, and linguistic composition of its population. This diversity is reflected in the national education system with an increasing share of students speaking a language other than Luxembourgish and/or German at home. In order to deal more adequately with the increasing language diversity of the student population and to counter educational inequalities that presumably result (at least in part) from a curriculum that places high language expectations on a growing number of students, the Luxembourgish government has broadened the educational offer by introducing European public schools (EPS). These schools follow the European curriculum and allow students to select one main language of instruction among the offered language sections (i.e., German, French, and English). • By combining data from different sources (e.g., administrative student data, expert interviews with stakeholders, achievement scores in mathematics from the Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme “Épreuves Standardisées” - ÉpStan), the present report offers preliminary results on EPS in Luxembourg. They consist of (1) the societal demand for EPS; (2) the composition of the student population in EPS; (3) the perception of EPS by school management teams and parents, and tangible education outcomes in the form of (4) educational trajectories; and (5) academic achievement in mathematics among EPS students compared to their peers in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum. Described below are the key preliminary findings for each of these aspects: (1) Since 2016, a total of six EPS have opened in different locations across Luxembourg and the amount of students attending EPS has increased considerably at both primary and secondary school level. With the number of applicants surpassing the number of places currently available in EPS, it can be concluded that there appears to be high demand for EPS. (2) With students having a low socioeconomic status (SES) and/or students speaking Portuguese at home taking up the offer of EPS less frequently than high SES students and/or students speaking French or English at home, the student population in EPS differs from the student population in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum (e.g., nationality, language primarily spoken at home, SES). (3) School management teams and parents report a rather positive perception of EPS, with the extended linguistic offer (i.e., possibility to select a language section) being the main reason why parents select EPS for their child. (4) Looking at the educational trajectories of EPS students, preliminary results offer a tentative indication of EPS students showing less school delay than their peers in school following the Luxembourgish curriculum and high continuity in their educational trajectories (i.e., the vast majority of students remains in EPS instead of changing curriculum). (5) With regard to achievement in mathematics at primary school level, the present report indicates that students in EPS perform better than their peers in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum. At secondary school level, EPS students perform better than their peers in Enseignement secondaire général - voie d'orientation (ESG) and in Enseignement secondaire général - voie de préparation (ESG-VP), while staying below the performance of Enseignement secondaire classique (ESC) students. Although low SES students or Portuguese speaking students in EPS show better achievement scores than their respective peers in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum it is not yet possible to draw strong conclusions based on these preliminary findings as these student groups currently take up the EPS offer less frequently than their peers considered as advantaged in the context of schooling. Their number is currently too small to allow more robust and in-depth statistical analyses. • The present report’s findings, especially regarding the tangible educational student outcomes, however, must be considered as tentative due to important methodological limitations. Indeed, the small numbers of students in EPS, particularly so for student groups with specific background characteristics (e.g., low SES students, Portuguese speaking students), do not allow separate analyses based on language section, for example. Thus any identified pattern could be sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of outliers (e.g., students with particularly high or low ÉpStan scores). In addition, the comprehensive EPS school system at secondary school level (i.e., common track) is compared to the ability-based tracked school system of schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum, which limits the interpretability of secondary school data. Regarding the academic achievement tasks in mathematics, it should be noted that they were developed using education standards of the Luxembourgish curriculum. It is thus possible that achievement was underestimated for EPS students (e.g., assessment of mathematical concepts that have not yet been introduced in EPS). To this date, the ÉpStan administered in EPS only assessed academic achievement in mathematics for which a bigger overlap between curricula is assumed than for language subjects (e.g., German, French). Current psychometric shortcomings (e.g., different timepoints of language introduction within the language section in EPS, task development, comparability of tasks) do not yet allow to assess academic achievement in language subjects. • Considering that the ÉpStan do not currently include a measure that operationalises the learning environment, the present report is unable to draw any conclusions regarding which EPS aspect contributes decisively in explaining the observed differences in educational outcomes. Nevertheless, three potential explanations are presented for further exploration: better linguistic fit in EPS (i.e., students learning to read and write in their native or a related language), structural differences between school offers (e.g., primary and secondary education within one institution, the institutionalized quality assurance and flexibility in teacher recruitment in EPS), and the differences in the composition of the student population (i.e., lower uptake rate of the EPS offer by low SES students and Portuguese speaking students). • The finding that low SES students and Portuguese speaking students take up the EPS offer less frequently than their high SES peers and French or English speaking students, and that the EPS student population differs from the student population in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum, could potentially result out of three main hurdles: namely (1) the application of selection criteria considering that the demand for EPS is surpassing the number of available places (i.e., the linguistic and/or academic profile of applying students is taken into consideration); (2) lacking system knowledge regarding the characteristics of Luxembourg’s education system among all actors involved in education (which makes it difficult to take informed decisions on a student’s education); and (3) potential organizational challenges that hamper the uptake of the EPS offer (e.g., geographical location of the EPS). • In light of the tentative result that students in EPS show better educational outcomes than many of their peers in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum, two main implications for educational policy can be deduced. First, the student composition of EPS could be diversified in a targeted manner. This could be achieved, for example, by a) encouraging EPS to target student groups considered as disadvantaged in the context of schooling (e.g., low SES students) more effectively, and by b) fostering an encompassing system knowledge (e.g., characteristics, similarities and differences of the two school offers) among all actors involved in education (e.g., teachers, parents, educational advisors, school psychologists) to allow parents to take an informed decision on their child’s education. A second implication would be to introduce certain characteristics of EPS in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum (e.g., extending the linguistic offer as in the French literacy acquisition pilot project currently implemented in four C2.1 classes). • By progressively integrating EPS into the well-established Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme, the ÉpStan will allow for a more in-depth analysis of potential educational outcome differences between EPS and schools following the Luxembourgish in the future. With the aim of providing reliable data for evidence-based policy making in the field of education, the results from the ÉpStan could in turn be used for the creation of school offers in which all students can make use of their full academic potential irrespective of their individual background characteristics (e.g., SES, language background)

The downward spiral of mental disorders and educational attainment: a systematic review on early school leaving.

BACKGROUND: Most psychiatric disorders present symptom patterns that cause severe impairment on the emotional, cognitive and social level. Thus, adolescents who suffer from a mental disorder risk finding themselves in a downward spiral caused by the reciprocal association of psychological symptoms and negative school experiences that may culminate in early school leaving. In addition to previous collective work that mainly focused on school refusing behaviour among children and was presented as an expert's opinion, the following systematic review fills the knowledge gap by providing a structured overview of the bidirectional association between mental health and secondary school dropout based on a sound methodology and with a particular focus on mediating factors. METHODS: Four electronic databases were searched from January 1990 until June 2014. Selected references were assessed for study details, main results, mediating factors and methodological limitations. Standardized risk of bias assessment was conducted. RESULTS: Mood and anxiety disorders seemed to have a less consequential direct effect on early school leaving than substance use and disruptive behaviour disorders. The association between externalizing disorders and educational attainment was even stronger when the disorder occurred early in life. On the other hand, internalizing disorders were reported to develop as a consequence of school dropout. Only few studies had addressed gender differences, with discrepant results. Socio-economic background, academic achievement and family support were identified as significant mediating factors of the association between mental disorders and subsequent educational attainment. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggested a strong association between mental health and education, in both directions. However, most studies focused on mediating factors that could not be targeted by intervention programs

Psychosocial risk and protective factors of early school leaving in Luxembourg: an exploratory case-control study

Considering the individual and socio-economic burden of early school leaving (ESL), the subject has gained primary concern among school professionals, researchers and political stakeholders who aim to gather the phenomenon of ESL and take action. In Luxembourg, since 2003, the ministry of education has systematically traced ESL and implemented targeted school-level interventions that certainly contributed to an overall decline of the national dropout rate. Nonetheless the proportion of young people who remain without any specific occupation after their dropout remained static, whereas the proportion of those who had resumed their education and then dropped out again even increased. These alarming observations challenge the efficiency of exclusively school-based measures and stretch the urge for considering a more holistic and preventive approach in reducing ESL. Furthermore, a significant proportion of adolescents develop a first episode of psychiatric disorder during their transition to adulthood, with incidence rates increasing by age. In this context, a primary objective of the present study was to explore, as a national novelty, prevalence rates of psychiatric disorders among early school leavers registered for the school year 2010/2011. Furthermore, the association between mental health variables as predictor of interest and early school leaving was explored by an incident-cases nationwide case-control study. Selected socio-demographic, school-related and family variables were included in the analyses as they are factors likely to interfere with both educational attainment and mental health. Cases were defined as students who had left the national educational system at some point during the school year 2010/2011 or at year-end but without having graduated. Controls were regularly enrolled students matched on age, gender, school, type of training and educational level. The presented research was jointly initiated by the University of Liège and the Centre for Health Studies of CRP-Santé in Luxembourg. Furthermore, it was part of the so-called PPSM « Prévention et Promotion de la Santé Mentale » mission, an « Interreg IV-A » project aimed at exploring and promoting mental health in the trans-border zone of Saarland (Germany), Lorraine (France), Wallonia (Belgium) and Luxembourg. Funding was granted under the AFR scheme of the « Fonds National de la Recherche ». The study protocol was fully approved by the national research ethics committee (« Comité National d’Ethique de Recherche ») and notified to the national commission for data protection (« Commission Nationale pour la Protection des Données »). Data collection was based on 200 individual interviews (100 in each group) and targeted socio-demographic variables, school experiences, psychiatric syndromes and disorder diagnoses according to DSM IV, problematic internet use and family variables.The present dissertation is divided into 5 main parts including an introduction, scope of the research, a description of the method and the results before finishing with the discussion and conclusion part. These 5 parts are again sub-divided into 15 chapters. The first part (introduction) starts with a brief general overview in chapter 1 illustrating the interregional and the national context of the study. Chapter 2 then describes the organization of the national school system whereas chapter 3 focuses on the core topic by providing a definition of ESL as well as main epidemiological results including national and international dropout statistics and identified school-related risk factors. In addition to school-related determinants, chapter 4 develops the association between mental health and educational attainment by providing an overview of relevant scientific results targeting psychosocial risk factors of ESL. The content of chapter 4 is expanded in a systematic literature review published with BMC Psychiatry.In the light of the previously exposed scientific contributions, part 2 illustrates the scope of the research project. Chapter 5 exposes hypotheses and objectives that had guided this work before raising expected contributions to scientific knowledge and practical implications. The methodology adopted to achieve the aforementioned objectives is presented in part 3 which is sub-divided into two chapters. Chapter 6 defines the case-control design, recruitment and field work procedures, data collection, quality control measures and return of results, whereas statistical analyses and evaluation of missing data are depicted in chapter 7. The detailed study protocol of this thesis had been published in BMC Public Health (cf. appendix 1).The following part consists of 4 different chapters dedicated to presenting the results of this research. Chapter 8 describes the inclusion of early school leavers into the study and evaluates their representativeness compared to the source population composed of all nationally registered school dropouts for the school year 2010/2011. Comparative analyses were run on age, gender, previous ESL, type and level of education. As they did not reveal any significant differences, participants were considered to be representative of the source population. In the same way, regarding the same characteristics, there were no significant differences between participants and non-participants. Chapter 9 illustrates the study sample in terms of socio-demographic background, school experiences, mental health and family functioning and allows to select potential predictor variables, according to a significance level of 20%, to include into subsequent multivariable analyses. Differences between cases and matched controls regarding these variables were explored with univariate conditional logistic regressions. Regarding socio-demographic variables, the decease of a parent was the only variable significantly associated with ESL. At school-level, absenteeism and being late for school were confirmed as potential predictors of ESL. Furthermore, early school leavers had significantly less positive relationships with teachers. They perceived them as less democratic, less cheerful and also less interested in the student as a person. Physical health variables did not significantly differ between cases and controls whereas mental health had a significant impact on ESL. More precisely, early school leavers reported more symptoms of withdrawn, anxiety or depression, somatic complaints without any medical reason, thought problems and aggressive behaviour. Depending on the type of syndrome, the probability of ESL increased by 6 to 20% when the syndrome score increased by one point. Diagnoses for any psychiatric disorder were highly prevalent in both groups with anxiety disorders being the most frequent. As for anxiety, the frequency of mood disorders was similar between cases and controls, but the presence of suicidal intentions was significantly associated with ESL. The same was observed for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. Both groups did not differ on so-called addictive behaviours (alcohol, illicit drugs and problematic internet use). Regarding family functioning, task fulfilment, communication, connectedness, affective expression and shared values were perceived more problematic among early school leavers.Chapter 10 gives an overview of estimated prevalence rates for psychiatric disorders among early school leavers with antisocial personality disorder (19%), alcohol abuse and dependence (14% and 11% respectively), major depressive disorder (13%), agoraphobia (13%) and substance dependence (10%) being predominant diagnoses. Differences between genders were assessed with Chi Square or Fisher’s exact test and observed for the prevalence of panic disorder, agoraphobia, substance abuse and antisocial personality disorder thus confirming the hypothesis of so-called internalizing disorders being more prevalent in women, whereas men more often presented so-called externalizing disorders.After univariate conditional logistic regressions presented in chapter 9, chapter 11 provides results from multivariable logistic regressions with ESL as the outcome of interest and selected predictor variables that were below the 20% significance level in univariate analyses. The models revealed that the likelihood of dropping out of school increased with symptoms of anxiety and depression, absenteeism, poor self-rated school performance and less perceived peer support. An article presenting the results of this work is currently in preparation. The fifth part of the thesis discusses in 4 chapters the main findings in the light of previous literature and in terms of the selected matching criteria. Practical implications and guidelines for prevention strategies are drawn from the final results. The views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Ministry of Education or the Centre for Health Studies

The impact of cerebral visual impairment on scholastic competence tests in grade 1 children

Purpose: Cerebral vision impairment (CVI) refers to a disturbance in visual processing related to damage to the visual areas in the brain and/or visual pathways. It is commonly assumed that CVI underlies functional vision difficulties, affecting the way individuals use their visual skills and abilities to perform daily tasks. Recent research estimated that around 3% of mainstream educated elementary school children have CVI. Experimental research shows that CVI negatively impacts specific learning processes linked to mathematics and reading. This study aimed to clarify how CVI impacts children’s performance at school, in children’s natural educational environment. Methods: As part of the Luxembourgish school monitoring program, the complete cohort of first graders (N = 5536) participated in three standardized pen and paper competence tests administered by the teacher in their classrooms. The stimuli were visually displayed for the areas of mathematics and early literacy. For listening comprehension, the stimuli were presented via an audio file. The complete cohort also completed questionnaires collecting motivational and background information (gender, home language). Parents further provided information on migration background, socio-economic status and parental education. Next, a representative sample of this cohort (n = 1129) individually participated in a visual competences’ screening led by a team of clinical experts. The screening included a neuro-visual assessment (Evaluation of Visuo-Attentional Abilities battery, including 9 subtests) as well as optometric and orthoptic assessments. Based on the experts’ clinical screening outcome, the sample was split into children with CVI (n = 38), children with optometric and orthoptic diagnoses (n = 201) and children without CVI (n = 890). Results: The analyses focused on the comparison between typically developing and CVI children. The results from multiple regressions showed that CVI children obtained significantly lower scores than children without CVI for mathematics and early literacy but not for listening comprehension, when controlling for background characteristics (gender, socio-economic status, migration background, parental education, and home language). Listening comprehension was however a significant predictor for mathematics and early literacy for both groups when controlling for background measures. More concretely, the explained variance of these models was higher for CVI children suggesting that they highly depend on auditory compensation strategies to complete written achievement tests. Conclusions: The prevalence rate for CVI was 3% within the representative sample confirming internationally reported rates. These results confirm the impact of CVI on learning processes in a school related environment and emphasize the need for the implementation of an early systematic identification of children at risk. The results on the use of compensatory auditory strategies stress that these children would benefit from an alternative presentation of their school material, allowing to build on these students’ strengths and provide them with a fairer assessment

The impact of cerebral visual impairment in school related competences in elementary school children

Cerebral vision impairment (CVI) refers to a disturbance in visual processing related to damage to the visual areas in the brain and/or visual pathways. It is often assumed that CVI underlies functional vision difficulties. Previous research estimated that around 3% of mainstream educated elementary school children have CVI, potentially compromising these students’ school related performance. This study aimed to clarify how CVI impacts children’s performance in school competence tests. As part of the Luxembourgish school monitoring, the complete cohort of first graders (N = 5536) participated in three competence tests (mathematics, early literacy and listening comprehension) and student/parent questionnaires (background information). From this cohort, a representative sample (n = 1129) also participated individually in a visual competences’ screening (Evaluation of Visuo-Attentional Abilities battery, optometric measures). For this study, the sample was divided into children with CVI (n = 38) and children without CVI (n = 890) based on the clinical screening outcome. Children with other diagnoses were excluded from the sample (n = 201). Results from multiple regressions showed that CVI children obtained significantly lower scores than children without CVI for mathematics and early literacy but not for listening comprehension, when controlling for background characteristics (gender, socio-economic status, migration background, parental education, and home language). Listening comprehension was however a significant predictor for mathematics and early literacy for both groups when controlling for background measures. More specifically, the explained variance of these models was higher for CVI children suggesting that they highly rely on auditory compensation strategies to complete written achievement tests. The prevalence rate for CVI was 3% within the representative sample confirming internationally reported rates. These results show the impact of CVI on school related performances and the need for the implementation of a systematic early identification of children at risk