Education, Students & Private Schooling

Public schools in Luxembourg are free and run by the government, beginning as early as age 3, children enter Enseignement Fondamentale (Fundamental Education) which consists of pre-school and primary school. However, only when a child reaches age four do they enter primary school, which is compulsory.

Upon passing through Primary school at age 11, the student enters secondary school which lasts between six and seven years. Although it is only compulsory for the child to be in full-time education up until 16. Schools typically are broken down into two main types, the Enseignement Secondaire (Secondary Education) and Enseignement Secondaire Technique (Technical Secondary Education). The former uses a system not dissimilar from those in the UK and US to prepare the student for college and university-level further education courses, whilst the latter normally incorporates a certificate or diploma course and allows students to develop a more focused skillset. There are also specialized schools for Sports, Languages, Adult Education and Post-Primary (for those who could not complete the primary level of education).

Being the only fully-fledged University in Luxembourg, the University of Luxembourg dominates the Higher Education scene in the country. However, several smaller universities do exist in the country and there are numerous campuses across the region for all of these universities, as well as incorporating sister branches from the US, UK and other nations.

It’s important to mention that in all public (and most private) schools that Trilingualism is featured heavily and Luxembourgish is spoken from a pre-school level onwards, then French is introduced in Primary School and German becomes the dominant language in Secondary school whilst additional languages such as Spanish, Italian and Latin are available at the same time. At a University level, English is used frequently with French and German as well. During all levels of pre-university level education, at least 50% of the hours used are used to teach languages.