Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine
Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance
Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust
Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine
Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History
Luxembourg Centre for European Law
Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems
For the past decade, the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET) has been at the forefront of evaluating and improving the country’s school system. Through innovative testing, comprehensive data analysis, and close collaboration with researchers and policymakers, LUCET has helped shape a more transparent, inclusive, and effective educational landscape in Luxembourg.
Luxembourg’s school system is very complex, owed notably to the country’s multilingualism and proximity to neighbouring countries. What is the quality of the school system and dow does it manage diversity and inclusion?
For the past 10 years, the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET) has been evaluating and monitoring the national school system. Their purpose is to address these questions and contribute to the continuous improvement of education, so that every pupil can reach their full potential, no matter their starting point.
In 2009, Luxembourg reformed its education system and established the need to evaluate schools in a transparent and independent manner. The mission was entrusted to the University of Luxembourg, and LUCET was founded a few years later. The centre then developed the school monitoring programme ÉpStan. These standardised tests are conducted every year in all schools across Luxembourg, to assess pupils’ skills in key areas such as mathematics, and languages.
“Compared to the international PISA tests, the ÉpStan provide much more detailed data. This allows us to better understand potential problems and their origins in order to act more effectively,” explains Sonja Ugen, Interim Director of LUCET. She adds: “This data is accessible to everyone via the online dashboard and is widely used in educational research, but also by journalists and, of course, policy makers.”
From data to diagnoses
All this data is also used by the LUCET, which publishes every three years the Bildungsbericht, a comprehensive national education report that analyses trends, challenges, and developments across Luxembourg’s education system. It also serves as a key resource for policymakers, teachers, and researchers alike.
Building on its field expertise and its links with education research, LUCET has also been entrusted with the mission of developing diagnostic test batteries tailored to the multilingual and multicultural context of Luxembourg. “These tests provide more accurate diagnoses for specific learning disorders while avoiding language-related misinterpretations, which can be a challenge in a country where multilingualism is the norm”, explains Sonja Ugen.
From diagnosis to effective action
Ten years have passed since the creation of the centre, and its numerous projects have contributed to the evolution of Luxembourg’s school system, report after report. The LUCET director is proud to say: “I believe we have shown over the years that transparent and reliable data is essential for effective action.”
Today, new challenges for the education system are emerging:
‟ The country’s growing multilingualism will require more flexibility in the choice of the teaching languages in the future.”
Research scientist
While LUCET has built a strong reputation in Luxembourg, the centre intends to continue growing to achieve its main mission: giving as many people as possible access to quality learning. “We now have the first complete cohort of pupils whom we have followed from cycle 1 to cycle 9. We would like to explore this data to better identify critical moments”, concludes Sonja Ugen.