Literacy in French: Minister of Education Claude Meisch defends the “Alpha Project” – and puts a study into perspective. The OGBL trade union criticizes the delayed publication and handling of the results.
Does literacy in French increase the performance of Luxembourg students or not? A study comes to the realization that the expected performance benefits not show in the data. This study was prepared by the “Luxembourg Center for Educational Testing” (Lucet). The center has taken the literacy pilot project “Projekt Alpha” under the microscope. But: The results of the study were kept under wraps by the Ministry of Education for months.
Ministry strikes a different tone
On Monday, the study was finally published – together with a statement from the Ministry of Education. The tone of the accompanying letter, different from that of the study: “Les evaluations 2026 confirment la pertinence de la réforme”, it says.
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Minister of Education Claude Meisch (DP) defended the “Alpha project” in an interview on 100.7 on Tuesday: The approach is “very positive”, it would help the children if they could learn to read, learn and write in a language that is closer to their own. “That still remains the fact”, says Meisch.
Fewer and fewer Alpha students
Only: In the Projekt Alpha pilot classes, which have been in existence since 2023/24, there are fewer students from year to year. The reason is that a part of the students extend – i.e. repeat part of the cycle – and another part is withdrawn. “After that, a number of students comes out, which raises the question of how meaningful that is,” says Meisch.
In the press release from Monday, his ministry had already presented tendencies towards better performances of the students literate in French in listening and reading comprehension. However, the Lucet report expressly does not show these as differences, because they are below the threshold of ten percent defined by the research center. For Meisch, it is “splitting hairs” on Tuesday, whether a factor is statistically relevant at ten or eleven percent.
“A plus in French”
However, the DP politician himself finds more or less empirical evidence. Thus, the number of extensions in the pilot classes is “by 25 percent” smaller. In the past few weeks, he has also been on the road a lot with regional directors and school directors. “I notice that the teachers actually say themselves that they have a lot of students for whom they firmly believe that literacy in French will bring a plus.”
The Syndicat Erziehung und Wissenschaft (SEW) of the OGBL sharply criticizes the handling of the Ministry of Education with the Lucet study. In a press release, the union wrote on Tuesday that it was “remarkable how the Ministry of Education downplayed the importance of the study”. It is not credible to “suddenly relativize” what was previously considered scientific evidence.
The OGBL also raises the question of why the results of the Lucet study, which have been available since February, have not been published for so long. The government’s justification for this is that an additional scientific review was ordered. The union speculates that this happened because at the end of the school year “less media and political attention” can be expected.
Source: Tageblatt
