Keeping students in school

• all actions and measures aiming to prevent teenagers or young adults under the age of 25, who are no longer subject to compulsory schooling, from leaving school with no qualifications, which means without having obtained a high school degree, a technical certificate (DT), a vocational training certificate (DAP), a vocational capacity certificate (CCP) or a qualification equivalent to one of these certificates;
• all actions and measures aiming to reintegrate these teenagers or young adults back into school or another training institution.

Inclusion

• Any matters relating to the integration of students with special educational needs in primary and secondary schools.

Integration

• Any matters relating to the integration of primary or secondary school students who have not spent all of their education in Luxembourg and whose language skills in German, French or Luxembourgish are thus insufficient, causing them to fall behind in their schooling.

The School Mediator assists the students (and their parents) in this process. To do so, and when a complaint is considered by the School Mediator to be justified, an investigation will be undertaken and, after having discussed the matter with the different services and/or schools involved, the School Mediator formulates a recommendation to all the parties concerned.

The School Mediator can, on the one hand, provide advice to the different services and schools involved as well as to the complainants, on the other hand, suggest solutions or make recommendations with a view to resolve the situation to everybody’s satisfaction.

The School Mediator, in due course, passes on proposals, in the form of recommendations, to the minister in charge of national education in Luxembourg. These proposals are intended to improve the functioning of the services and schools in which the Mediator has had to intervene. He latter also draws up an annual report relating to their field of activity and in which he reiterates, completely independently, the recommendations he deem to be useful. The report, which is published on the website of the National Ministry of Education, is sent to the chamber of deputies and to the government.

Once the matter has legitimately been referred to the School Mediator, the latter must inform the complainant, in writing, of all the follow-up actions undertaken. When the School Mediator does not deem a complaint to be justified, he will provide his motivated decision in written form to the complainant.

In addition, the School Mediator and the officials of the school mediation service are required to respect the professional secrecy and, in this respect, nothing that would allow the identification of those who have requested the help of the School Mediator can be included in the documents created under the authority of the latter or obtained in any way whatsoever.