Staff Committees of the European institutions // The Parents associations of the European schools / / Staff associations of the European Civil Service

Press Release

A demonstration involving parents, children and the staff of the European Institutions will take place this Tuesday 12 April 2011 to protest against the budgetary restrictions foreseen for the European schools with effect from the start of the new school year.

The Budgetary Authorities (the Council of Ministers, European Parliament and the Member States) are close to deciding the 2012 Budget which will reduce the budgetary allocation per child. The amount which the schools are being asked to save has a direct impact on the educational aspects and will affect the quality of the teaching with a real risk of preventing entry to certain university courses.

In particular:

• Teaching in the mother-tongue will be reduced and students will be in competition with native speakers without the proper preparation in languages.
• Member States do not second enough teachers.
• Access to certain courses, particularly those devoted to preparing for science studies at university will be blocked for many pupils
• Support for children with learning problems or with special needs will be drastically curtailed

Less than half the children of staff in the institutions go to European schools because these are currently overcrowded and the quality of the education dispensed is more and more called into question.   This state of affairs puts an undue strain on the local national educational systems as parents are left only with this choice.  The local schools in Brussels host already about 17 000 European children and will be put under further strain by these developments. Parents and children see their educational conditions deteriorating on all levels.  
Those taking part in this demonstration demand that all measures be taken to ensure a place for each child in the European schools. They demand to open the system also to include children whose parents do not work for the European institutions. This school model should be reinforced as a benchmark for developing a European education available to all within the national systems of education.

They protest against the use of the economic crisis as a pretext for refusing to invest in Europe’s future and the education of its children.

Contact:

Marco Pino
Secretary of the Local staff Committee
tel: +3222957371
gsm: +32494312555
marco.pino@ec.europa.eu

Press Hand-out

The European schools are official educational establishments created jointly by the governments of the Member States of the European Union as well as the European Community. They enjoy the legal status of a public body in each of these countries.

The role of the European Schools is to provide a multilingual and multicultural education to children at nursery, primary and secondary levels. They are primarily aimed at the children of staff in the European institutions.

There are currently 14 schools of type I (Alicante, Bruxelles I, II, III & IV, Frankfurt-am-Main, Mol, Bergen, Karlsruhe, München, Varese, Culham, Luxembourg I & II),spread over 7 countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain and Luxembourg) andcater for about 22 500 pupils.