The Plea of the Locally Recruited Teachers – A Study on the Failure of Cost-Sharing within the European Schools

By Laszlo Molnarfi, EEB1, S6HUA.

1. BACKGROUND

“Maybe nobody can do anything, but we want to express our disquiet, we want to make sure we’re heard by those who CAN change the system,” says a student of EEB4 at an emergency meeting hastily convened in the wake of the new crisis facing the European Schools. Subsequently, approximately 200[1] students gathered on the 12th of March at 11:00 AM and began striking in their school against the recently proposed directive of the Board of Governors. Drafted and imposed upon the European Schools by the pressure of bureaucrats in the European Commission, it would be fair to say that this was not a democratic process. This is the story of how our beloved European Schools are being pushed to a breaking point, and how we may be powerless to stop it.

In the European Schools, there is a long history of struggle against the injustices and failures of the financial system, which also trickles down into the hiring system. Article 3 of the 1994 Convention Defining the Statute of the European Schools[2] declares that classroom education in the European Schools is guaranteed by (European) Member States appointing their own national teachers to each European School. Unfortunately, this idealistic system does not work fully in practice, for the reasons which you will see quite shortly. According to the Convention, the terms under which the recruitment takes place is to be worked out at the Board of Governors[3] – on this board, which is the highest decision-making body in the European Schools, sit some of the major political and financial stakeholders of the system, such as the representatives of each European Member State (the ministries of education) and a representative from the European Commission. In addition to staff and parent representatives, a few other stakeholders are also members[4]. To understand the situation we face currently, we need to take a look at Article 25 of the Convention[5]. Article 25 stipulates that the budget of the European Schools is mostly made up of contributions from Member States through the payment of national emoluments (salaries) of the seconded teachers, the schools’ own revenues, and the contribution of the European Institutions, namely the European Commission[6]. The budget of the individual European School is set by the Board of Governors from the general budget of the European Schools. Thus the seconded teachers’ salaries are fully shared across the Member States, or one would think. However, the current regulation developed by the Board of Governors in force[7] specifies that the salary rate of the teachers is pegged to the rates of the officials of the European Institutions, and that the Member States pay only the national salary of their seconded teachers, meaning that the individual European School must pay the rest of the salary from their own budget (which comes mostly from the European Commission). In essence, the individual European School, thus the European Commission, and the Member States jointly pay the seconded teachers to achieve Luxembourg-based rates[8]. In addition, there exist locally recruited teachers, who are widely employed across the European Schools today due failure to fully implement the seconding system (keep this in mind) – locally recruited teachers are fully paid for by the individual European School’s budget, thus mainly by the European Commission.

2. THE SHORTCOMINGS OF COST-SHARING

On the 1st October of 2002, the 1994 Convention Defining the Statute of the European Schools came into force[9]. In March of 2005[10], the European Parliament called for a reform of the system and ruled that “the current arrangement, whereby Member States’ contributions are directly linked to the number of teachers they second to the European Schools and to the premises they provide for the European Schools, is not equitable and that alternative systems of financing should be explored” but that it does recognize that this system ensures access to the teaching expertise in each Member State and that through this system the obligations of the Member States as set out in the Convention are fulfilled. Preceding this, another European Parliament ruling passed in December of 2002[11] urging the European Schools to develop a sustainable model of funding. The Board of Governors was quick to react; over a period spanning years, there were lively debates to find a solution. Finally, at the meeting in April of 2009, the Board of Governors agreed to uphold a few basic principles[12]: to ensure that running costs are fairly divided between the Member States, to reform the governance structure of the European Schools, and to develop the European School Accreditation system as per the advice(s) of the European Parliament. Essentially, the largest problem by far was that the Member States sent teachers unequally (e.g. there was more demand for English nationals than for Hungarian nationals), and as such, the amount they had to pay depended on the number of seconded teachers they sent. For example, in the scholastic year 2011-2012, the United Kingdom had sent 235 seconded teachers, which was 15.41% of the budget, while Austria had sent only 23 seconded teachers, which was 1.51% of the budget[13]. While the reform and its principles undoubtedly improved the situation, for some, like the United Kingdom, it was too little and too late. One of these principles adopted was that certain language courses could now be taught by non-natives (with quality control), in order to allow Member States other than the United Kingdom to second English teachers, to alleviate the disproportionate number of United Kingdom seconded teachers. Another one was that a theoretical threshold be set for the maximum amount a Member State can be asked to contribute. In addition, it was decided that “Indicative minimum objectives will be used to start a dialogue with Member States“, and that the European Schools will also focus on seconded posts other than teachers (e.g. Directors seconded by Member States). The solution some – including the United Kingdom – would have preferred was one in which the financial contribution for a Member State would be calculated depending on the percentage of nationals from the Member State enrolled across the European Schools – or some similar pro-rata system – was rejected by the Board of Governors[14]. Instead, the BOG passed a non-binding resolution (January 2008[15]) to link the number of teachers seconded by a Member State proportionately to the number of their nationals enrolled at the European Schools. As such, it was a structural solution and not a financial solution, but the most worrying is that this pièce de résistance was non-binding. Nobody followed it, it did not create more teachers out of thin air for less in-demand countries, and the United Kingdom still had to second additional teachers, thus bypassing the theoretical threshold. The United Kingdom was not content with this. In 2011, at a meeting of the Troika (a reform working group in the Board of Governors[16]), the United Kingdom hinted at its plans to stop seconding a percentage of teachers above the percentage of United Kingdom nationals enrolled across the European Schools, as per the theoretical threshold[17]. Many, including Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the Commission, Finland and Belgium supported the United Kingdom in recognizing the problem. Portugal, like the United Kingdom, suggested a radical change in the funding system. Sadly, no consensus was found. At the same time, another ruling came through from the European Parliament[18] in June 2011, stating that “the current funding system places a disproportionate burden as regards secondment and supply of infrastructure on certain Member States, and calls on the Board of Governors to review the way in which the Schools are funded and the recruitment of teachers,” and also mentioning the lack of commitment from the Member States. The United Kingdom’s grievances were supported by facts; in the 2010-2011 scholastic year (one year after the reform passed), the United Kingdom still seconded 16.3% of seconded staff to the European Schools, yet the European Schools was composed of only 8.5% of United Kingdom nationals in that year.[19]As to the theoretical threshold for secondments, the United Kingdom claims it had spent 5.5 million euros more than the threshold would normally allow for due to the demand for secondments. During the scholastic year of 2011-2012, negotiations deteriorated, and no progress was made with the Cost Sharing Working Group set up in April 2008[20][21], even though there was consensus that the matter at hand is a huge problem; the Member States still failed to fulfill their obligations (though non-binding) of seconding a proportional number of teachers. In 2012, the United Kingdom was still sending 105 more teachers than it had to as per the non-binding agreement of Stockholm.[22][23]At this point, the United Kingdom announced its plans to reduce the number of seconded teachers to the threshold for the scholastic year 2013-2014, a pre-Brexit if you will, and offered to help in finding locally recruited teachers via an official statement on the 13th of April 2013[24][25].

And as such, with this sudden lack of seconded teachers from the United Kingdom, the number of locally recruited teachers in the European Schools suddenly skyrocketed. Today, it is widely known in the European Schools that there are two types of teachers distinguished by the system; the locally recruited teachers (LRT for short) and the seconded teachers. Since the European Schools had a lack of teachers from the Member States, especially after the loss of the United Kingdom, they had to hire teachers from their host countries, which would be paid for by their own budget, which in turn is mostly given to them by the European Commission. It was not only the United Kingdom who started being reluctant to second teachers. Over the years, all Member States have decreased their number of seconded teachers, and thus decreased on a global average their financial contribution to the European Schools[26]:

Figure 1: Data source is in footnote number twenty-six and generated via Excel. All research data can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Plea-of-the-Locally-Recruited-Teachers-–-A-Study-on-the-Failure-of-Cost-Sharing-within-the-European-Schools_DATA.xlsx .

This is probably also due to the badly-timed budget cuts of 2011. The actual contribution of the European Commission for the scholastic year 2011-2012 was less (163.9 million euros) than the budget expected by the Board of Governors (171 million euros). This cut of more than 7 million euros can be linked to national austerity measures in the Member States after the 2007 housing market crash and a general deficit in the budget of the European Union[27]. Despite several attempts by associations such as the INTERPARENTS, the European Commission failed to act – “It is not possible to take the money from somewhere else. We have a rule in the EU of financial accountability,” said Marco-Umberto Moricca from the European Commission’s directorate for social policy and health[28]. Reports say that the salary of seconded teachers was cut by 30% while the salary of locally recruited teachers was cut by 20% – this may have affected the seconded teachers more than locally recruited ones, since understandably they became less willing to leave their home countries, seeing that their salary was not worth more or worth even less than if they worked in their national states[29][30]. As for locally recruited teachers, this was also an issue because it made the hiring of good-quality substitutes (for the seconded teachers) difficult. It is worth pointing out that the United Kingdom’s decision to stop sending a disproportionate number of teachers had a delayed effect; it is not immediately apparently in the scholastic year 2014-2015 as the statistics include the personnel already seconded, but quickly becomes apparent when looking at the global average through the years. What it boils down to is that this threw the ecosystem of the European Schools off-balance; nobody ever expected to deal with locally recruited teachers so quickly taking the place of seconded teachers and the contribution, both personnel and financial of the Member States, so sharply decreasing. It is precisely because of this unexpected situation that recently, due to the pressure of the European Commission, the Board of Governors has taken the wrong step forward.

The Board of Governors, in response to the United Kingdom’s sudden withdrawal (or rather, their unwanted compliance with the regulations in place, i.e. their decision to stop seconding a percentage of staff higher than the percentage of United Kingdom nationals enrolled across the European Schools) overhauled the cost-sharing model[31] in 2013. This was essentially also a structural quota model but more binding – in its language – on the Member States. It considered the number of pupils by nationality, the national salary, the language section’s place in the European School system and the number of seconded staff members by nationality. The Member States were given a mandate to implement this system from 2015 until 2019, with a quota of 20% needing to be gradually filled each year[32] – if they did not fill the required part of the seconded staff quota, they would, in theory, be asked to make a financial contribution to the European Schools or would be asked to provide the required teachers next year as per the quota[33]. Some of the funds from the Member States would be used to refund those, like the United Kingdom, who over-second teachers (send more than the required number). At the Board of Governors meeting in December 2014 (and all the years since then), where this new system was announced, all the Member States who were below the quota promised to second additional staff, while some of them explicitly expressing unwillingness to make a financial contribution, and throughout the years none were asked to either.[34] The Board of Governors never used its power under Article 25.1 of the 1994 Convention to request a “financial contribution decided on by the Board of Governors acting unanimously”. In fact, the Member States could decide on whether to promise the Board of Governors seconded teachers or to promise them a financial contribution (as mentioned above, all opted each year for the promise of seconding more teachers) – it can be speculated that since the Board of Governors is made up primarily from representatives of each Member State, none ever wanted to set a precedent by attempting to force a financial contribution. In any case, the decision must be made unanimously[35] and in fact all decisions concerning the Statute and decisions concerning cost-sharing must be accepted anonymously[36]. According to available data from the 2014-2015, 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 scholastic years, most Member States kept their promises as far as increasing the number of their seconded teachers, but the United Kingdom was still over-seconding teachers with no financial compensation[37], and the global number of seconded teachers started decreasing. As the years went by and the contracts of the United Kingdom seconded staff expired, the number of seconded staff in the United Kingdom went down. In 2014-2015, the United Kingdom was still seconding 53.84 more staff than it needed to. By 2016-2017, this number had decreased to 9.8, while at the same time, in a large part due to the exit of the United Kingdom, the European Schools experienced a sure but gradual increase in locally recruited teachers – simply put, the system was not working as intended. The reason for this is that it had an accidental or intentional logical fallacy built in. In essence, the system counted the number seconded staff in post by each Member State and used it as one of the variables when determining the amount needed. This means that each year as the number of seconded teachers (the whole pie) went down due to other factors, the quota also went down with it, which began a vicious cycle; the pie became the size to fit the Member State contribution and not the other way around[38]. While it did achieve an increase in seconded teachers for countries that were already behind the quota, most of those countries stayed behind the quota[39]. Overall secondments (Figure 3) decreased as the student population of the European Schools increased (Figure 2), and as a result more locally recruited staff were hired.

Figure 2: Data taken from https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2017-10-D-31-en-2.pdf, p.2 and https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-10-D-17-en-2.pdf, p.3. Data graphed with Excel. All research data can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Plea-of-the-Locally-Recruited-Teachers-–-A-Study-on-the-Failure-of-Cost-Sharing-within-the-European-Schools_DATA.xlsx .

Figure 3: Data taken from https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2017-10-D-31-en-2.pdf, p. 19 and https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-10-D-17-en-2.pdf, p.24. Data graphed with Excel. All research data can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Plea-of-the-Locally-Recruited-Teachers-–-A-Study-on-the-Failure-of-Cost-Sharing-within-the-European-Schools_DATA.xlsx .

By 2016-2017, the situation became clear. For whatever reason, the Member States were refusing to send teachers. It can be speculated that the reasons for this includes a variety of problems, and according to issues raised by Member States at meetings of the Board of Governors are[40]; budgetary cuts and lack of interest, unavailability of applicable posts to fill for certain states, the inherent logical fallacy of the cost sharing solution, and the unwillingness of national schools to release their teachers for a nine-year secondment. Most important was that there was an unavailability of applicable posts to fill, due to the language issue – the proposal to have non-native teachers met many roadblocks. If it worked, it would have more-or-less assured that each Member State could send the required number of teachers for the quota. Without it, countries like the United Kingdom, France and Germany would still have to send more seconded staff over their threshold to supplant the lack of qualified English, French and German teachers in other countries. The 2017 Report of the Secretary-General to the Board of Governors states in plain English that the Member States are not willing to fill these types of posts: “Delegations have announced their intention of filling only a small proportion of these posts, meaning that an increasing number of full-time teaching posts will remain covered by teachers recruited locally,”[41] . An explanation for this is that the Member States were not willing to, or not competent enough to test the language skills of the teachers they second (the burden of testing the language skills of seconded teachers was pushed onto the Member States). Another way of looking at it is that there is a shortage of non-native qualified teachers in Member States, and that due to the budget cuts of 2011-2012 the conditions for hiring and retaining these teachers is not competitive. All of this resulted in the increase seen in Figure 1 in locally recruited teachers and the decrease in seconded teachers throughout the years. Unfortunately, this also meant the structural problem morphed into a financial problem, and then transformed into a political issue.

To understand the issue, let us recall that the European Schools are essentially based on the contribution of the Member States and the European Commission. There is bitter struggle over the budget each year, as the different agendas of these entities clash. After the 2012-2013 budget cut, there was short bout of crisis for the 2013-2014 budget. Yet again, due to austerity measures, the European Commission wanted to limit their contribution to the budget to 164 million euro (1 million euro less than the year before), however they backed out of this at the last minute and increased their contribution to 174 million euros[42]. However, as each year, the budget provided to address the challenges faced by the European School system was not adequate. Even the increased budget of 174 million euros caused certain cutbacks across the European School system[43]. The foremost issue was the paying of the locally recruited teachers as the number of seconded teachers started decreasing in 2012-2013, 2013-2014 and beyond. These would have to be paid for by the contribution of the European Commission, which they were not happy about, but did make certain (arguably not enough) adaptations to the budget. As such, the financial contribution of the Member States decreased, and the contribution of the European Commission increased through the years. This is key to understanding our dilemma.

Figure 4: Data taken from https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf (to 2017-2018) and https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf (to 2017-2018) and (2007-2008). Graph made with Excel. All research data can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Plea-of-the-Locally-Recruited-Teachers-–-A-Study-on-the-Failure-of-Cost-Sharing-within-the-European-Schools_DATA.xlsx .

Figure 5: Combining both commitment and payment appropriations from http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/publications/2018/financial-report_en.pdf, p.18 andhttps://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf, p. 25. Data graphed with Excel. This is what the issue is about – 0.064% of the budget of the European Commission. All research data can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Plea-of-the-Locally-Recruited-Teachers-–-A-Study-on-the-Failure-of-Cost-Sharing-within-the-European-Schools_DATA.xlsx .

As can be seen in Figure 4, the contribution of the European Commission to the budget of the European Schools increased by over 36.9 percent from 2008-2009 to 2017-2018 (the ratio of total contribution increased by 5%). For a numerical perspective, the contribution of the European Commission was around 138 million euros for the scholastic year 2008-2009, while for last year that same figure (2017-2018) stands at 189 million euros. This annoys the European Commission for two reasons. The first reason is that they are forced to contribute much more of their general budget to the European Schools. The second is that the European School system (of which they are stakeholders with voting rights at the Board of Governors together with the Member States) is threatened by the Member States’ failure to second teachers, since the European Commission is beginning to finance more and more expenses, while the Member States are not fulfilling their obligations. The European Commission cannot finance everything – while they increase their budget contribution, the actual amount of progress in the European Schools that can be made in a year stagnates, due to the lack of member-state secondment; new schools need to be opened (e.g. The 5th European School in Brussels), the number of pupils increases (leading to overcrowding), support structures need to be updated (i.e. ICT budget), and in short, the European Schools are expanding. In the end, these factors lead to less spending per-pupil within the European Schools. In 2010-2011, there were 17396 students overall at the European Schools[44] – today, for the 2018-2019 scholastic year, there are 27176 students enrolled[45]. This is an increase of 56.2 percent. Yet, there was no one to truly fund this expansion[46], and in addition the European Commission is forced to pay a significant amount of money to cover the declining contribution of the Member States. It is against this background that we can examine the recent decision of the Board of Governors, which was lobbied for by the European Commission.

Figure 6: https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2016-01-D-50-en-2.pdf, p. 23 and https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf, p. 24. Data graphed with Excel. All research data can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/The-Plea-of-the-Locally-Recruited-Teachers-–-A-Study-on-the-Failure-of-Cost-Sharing-within-the-European-Schools_DATA.xlsx .

3. POLITICAL PRESSURE BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

It is mostly with regret that we say that the European Commission has managed to pressure the Board of Governors into taking a utilitarian step in the wrong direction to solve this issue once and for all. The agreed upon date for achieving the plans of the quota system was the scholastic year 2019-2020[47] . And as such, due to the failures of the 2014 plan of action, at the December 2018 meeting[48] of the Board of Governors a new procedure that is aimed at dealing with the disproportionate number of locally recruited teachers was passed[49]. In addition to this new procedure, a proposal harmonizing the language qualifications for non-native teachers (both LRT and seconded) was also passed at the 2018 April meeting[50]. It states: “the appointment of a non-native speaker should remain a pragmatic and exceptional answer to a scarcity situation,“ This would be by default good, since the failures of the current cost-sharing model and possible problems with hiring non-native teachers are now recognized. However, the new procedure for dealing with the issue at hand has certain uncomfortable strings attached to it. As part of the 2014 cost-sharing solution, the documents that the European Schools used to keep, among these a list of posts for which secondments are needed (and which were either empty or filled by LRTs), were thrown out. Since the number of secondments that were required of the Member States could be exactly calculated, there was no use for such a list anymore, though it also served to hide the logical fallacy of the cost-sharing solution (the list would have shown the actual number of teachers needed). It was generally known that a certain number of posts would be filled by secondment, and the other posts would be filled by LRTs, since the Member States could not provide and were not required to provide all the secondments simply based on their quotas. Essentially what was a temporary solution (LRTs) became permanent over the years. Today, our LRTs are extremely valuable to our European School community, and we no longer make a distinction between them. In earlier times, an LRT may have expected to leave a European School after a short stay, and provisions would be made for him/her (e.g. no S6 and S7 classes to avoid a change of teacher from S6 to S7) – they were on the “available for secondment” list. However, as the ratio of locally recruited teachers slowly equalized with that of the seconded teachers, locally recruited teachers became permanent and were continuously re-hired by the individual European School (LRTs can be hired indefinitely, seconded teachers are hired for 9 years[51]). But suddenly, the European Commission has requested this to be reversed. In simple terms, the European Commission wishes to reverse the decline in funding from the Member States. To that end, they requested and lobbied for a directive (at the Board of Governors, and their lobbying was successful) that every European School start compiling again the “available for secondment” list, with all the current positions that are either empty or filled by LRTs, in order to start replacing them with secondments. The European Schools were informed of this at the Administrative Board meetings in September-October of the 2017-2018 scholastic year. To be clear, this was a mandatory request that needed to be completed – previously, each European School could choose which posts that were at that time empty or filled by LRTs to keep and which to give up[52]: “At the Administrative Board meetings in September-October 2018 the Directors were requested to list all posts currently hold [held] by Locally Recruited Teachers which do fulfil the requirements for the creation of a seconded post (full time table and likelihood that the post will be needed over the coming nine years). These lists had to include also information as to whether the posts could be filled by non-native speaker teachers in accordance with the language policy of the European Schools”.[53] Now, the jobs of all those teachers and staff, even those of native speakers, some of them part of our community for a long time, are suddenly up for grabs, and local hires are to be laid off.

This list would be used to request secondments from Member States (so increased quotas) by incorporation into the “Creation and Suppression of Posts” document, and to achieve the cooperation of the Member States the European Commission is applying political pressure, which seems to be working, seeing that the Board of Governors has already received a considerable number of notices from the Member States who have agreed to second teachers[54]. As such, we can expect quite a large number of locally recruited staff to be laid off for the 2019-2020 scholastic year. The timeline of the events are as follows: In March 2018, the European Commission wrote a letter to Mr. Marcheggiano, Secretary-General of the European Schools, asking for concrete data on the issue, citing that “the founding principle of the ES [European School] system is based on secondment or assignment of teachers by Member States.”[55]. The European Commission asked for data such as the profile of teachers that the European Schools are having difficulty attracting, in order to be able to make an informed opinion about the way forward. In December 2018, at the Board of Governors meeting a document titled “Draft proposals to increase the attractiveness of the European Schools for teaching staff”[56] was discussed, with the aim to facilitate the acquisition of new teachers into the European School system (e.g. higher salaries with a monthly “European renumeration”). At the same meeting, a new cost-sharing model was discussed, where the Board of Governors set a target of 70% of seconded teachers and only 30% locally recruited for the 2019-2020 scholastic year[57], by increasing the quota of each Member State and with the help of the European Commission’s pressure. If the Member State seconds a teacher and passes the evaluation, the European School must accept him/her and must lay off the locally recruited teacher[58][59]. The proposal has not yet passed and is scheduled to be discussed in April at the next Board of Governors, but the Board of Governors has already asked the European Schools to compile this list of positions that need to be seconded and that are either empty or currently held by locally recruited staff. This is why they asked for the list – to be able to use it to meet this threshold of 70%. This list was compiled at the beginning of the year by the each of the European Schools and was also presented at this meeting in 2018 December: “The Board of Governors took note of the table listing the courses taught by locally recruited teachers, which contained the information used as a basis to produce the list of posts to be created.”[60]. This list is central to the issue.

4. SCANDAL AT EEB4

Up to this point, this may have been a structural, financial and lately a political issue. However, this list is the turning point. What once had been talked of directly – the teachers, students, and parents of our community – moved away into a numerical representation thereof into the distant upper-levels of a bureaucratic institution. The more the decision-making process of an organization is estranged from the human aspect within the organization the more the sustaining of the institution becomes its ultimate goal. The original impetus of representation turns abstract. Yet, with the power of the brewing storm the abstract reverts to its former state, striking up a blizzard from the lower strata of the organization. This transformation begets humanity in its purest form, detaching itself from the material confines of the institution. Already, due to their precarious situation described beforehand, the locally recruited teachers often felt discriminated vis-à-vis their seconded counterparts[61]. It was only in 2016 that they negotiated a new contract which introduced more job security, a more transparent pay scale, formal representation and inspection[62]. And now, suddenly, with locally recruited teachers holding 46.5% of all European School posts, the European Schools are asked to lay off 16.5% to reduce that number to 30%. This came as a shock to everyone in the European School community, and also affected each school differently. In a document known as the “Locally Recruited Teachers’ Plea”[63], all the staff representatives from the European Schools wrote a joint letter of appeal to the Secretary-General Mr. Giancarlo Marcheggiano and European Commissioner in charge of the Budget and Human Resources Mr. Oettinger, asking to freeze this proposal: “It will have long-lasting and irrevocable effects at both school and individual levels throughout the European School system, for both locally recruited and especially those seconded staff wanting to continue as LRT after secondment.”. According to them, this would mean (provided that the Member States agree to provide secondments) a potential loss of up to 45% of teaching staff at one of the European Schools (more than 60% counting the EEB1 Berkendael temporary site that opened in 2016-2017 as a separate school[64]) and would also result in a significant collective loss across all the European Schools. They cite, amongst other things, loss of continuity, loss of native speakers (the Member States would send more non-natives to account for the increased quota), loss of adapted teachers, the difficulty of locally recruited teachers to return to the national system, a “fractured team-spirit”, loss of expertise and continued instability of the system. For locally recruited teachers, it was unimaginably stressful to have their names on the list of secondable posts, which implies that they are discardable, all the while this could not be further from the truth. The CoSup (umbrella organization of all the Pupils’ Committees within the European Schools) is also worried about this, especially about the loss of continuity and good quality teaching (non-natives and the inspection issue)[65] in S6 and S7, as discussed at their meeting on the 1st of December 2018[66], the 9th of February 2019[67] and the 23nd of March 2019[68], and at the latest one proposed the solution of having a fifty-fifty ratio instead of a seventy-thirty. In some European Schools, the percentage of seconded teachers is much lower than the average, with the locally recruited teachers taking their place. For example, the European School of Brussels I has 62% seconded teachers, while the European School of Brussels IV has only 53.7%[69]. Another example is the temporary Berkendael site which is an annex to EEB1 (opened in 2016-2017[70]), which has 73.7% locally recruited teachers and only 26.3% seconded teachers. As such, some European Schools are more affected than others. An additional reason coefficient of the situation is the attitude of the Directors of the European Schools. When the Directors of the European Schools received the request to compile the list, they had two choices – either go about the issue transparently or compile the list in secret[71]. Finally, there were also some exemptions for the posts to be put up to secondment that the Directors could use to skillfully avert a crisis situation – native English LRTs teaching Math, Chemistry and English (L2 and L3), and generally all English mother-tongue teachers could be kept by the Director if he or she so decided[72][73].

In this respect, EEB4 was a series of unfortunate events. With this new directive in place, and already predisposed to issues with a high percentage of locally recruited teachers, a crisis situation has gradually developed and recently exploded with the student demonstration of the 12th March at the fourth European School in Brussels (Figure 7), which is situated in Laeken. On the Monday of 4th of March, the Pupils’ Committee (Comité Des Eleves, the CdE) published on their Facebook site a post detailing the situation after a class representative meeting with the Director of EEB4, Mr. Bordoy[74]. According to EEB4’s CdE with the confirmation of other sources (parents and the administration), EEB4 was forced to put up 137 posts for secondment, which was every single LRT position. Usually, says the post, “barely any posts are filled (18/50 posts were filled two years ago”, but “due to recent pressure from the European Commission, countries have increased their secondments”. Out of the 137 posts for secondment, current estimates say that EEB4 will be receiving 25 to 32 seconded teachers if the Member States fulfill their notices (their notice of wishing to send a seconded teacher) – all 25 to 32 of these seconded teachers will be replacing locally recruited teachers currently in place. The CdE of EEB4 transmits the message of the administration: “next year will not be any different than from the last […] the only change this year is that nearly all of them will be LR” in reference to the fact that each year some teachers leave the European Schools, and some arrive as per their contracts. Apparently, “retention criteria” were put in place to make the transition more humane, and “the LRT are recruited knowing that at any year they could be replaced as they are a temporary solution to a missing secondment”. Furthermore, the administration of EEB4 says, according to the post of EEB4’s CdE, that the affected teachers were warned early and helped; they asked countries to withdraw their notices, asked other schools to transfer their teachers, made references and allowed for absences due to job interviews. However, a comment on the post of the EEB4’s CdE says[75]: “The teachers where only warned early because the list was sent out to all of them by mistake. If it hadn’t been sent out they still wouldn’t know” (referring to the list the European Schools were asked to compile at the beginning of the year) – this, it must be mentioned, is a rumor. At this meeting after which the post was made, the class representatives were also promised that the administration is trying its best to not disrupt the S6 to S7 cycle. “We are saddened that the school cannot change this situation and can only stand in solidarity with the teachers that will lose their jobs, and we ask you to appreciate them in these unsteady times”, finishes the post by the CdE of EEB4[76]. Soon after the publication of this explanatory post, in a heroic and more than likely historic move, the students of EEB4 decided to set up a strike in a show of solidarity with the teachers (“we have decided that this year, departing teachers would get the recognition they deserve.”). This strike was planned for the March 12th from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM[77]. In response, the administration, via an email on the 7th of March, convened a meeting for the 11th of March 13:30 with the school director Mr. Bordoy the deputy director of the secondary school Mrs. Vewilghen and the class representatives. The perceived objective of this meeting was to convince the students to call off the protest. The APEEE of EEB4 wrote to the administration in support of this movement, citing the students’ right to freedom of expression and assembly[78][79], and also asked to be included in the meeting, which the administration accepted. In the end, the participants included the administration, the students, the representative of the teachers and the surprise guest, Mr. Beckmann, who is the Deputy Secretary General of the European Schools. The action-packed meeting started at 13:30 with the Director justifying his acceptance of the secondment proposals because, as he said, he was following the regulations. Shortly thereafter, he shared the administration’s version of the Facts and Figures for EEB4 document, which was based off the annual statistical report of the Office of the Secretary-General for 2018-2019 scholastic year[80]. It cited 33 dismissals. The APEEE of EEB4 in its report contested this version of the facts; “2019-02-DD-14-en-2[81] of the Office of the Secretary-General of the European Schools appears to indicate a total of 43.” but said that due to the uncertainty of the system nothing can be known for sure yet[82]. The Director then explained that he was not informed of the above-mentioned exemptions for English mother-tongue teachers et al[83]. Another important moment was when the S6 to S7 situation concerning continuity was developed; at EEB4, 4 out of the 25 LRTs teach S7 according to the Director – in response, the students expressed their fears of change from S6 to S7 at the meeting. During the meeting, the administration continually encouraged the students to debate rather than to strike, and Mr. Beckmann explained the situation with the Member States and the European Commission. A student replied “Maybe nobody can do anything, but we want to express our disquiet, we want to make sure we’re heard by those who CAN change the system”, and another student referenced the Whole School Inspection taking place this week at EEB4, by saying that the administration wanted to silence the protest for fear of impact on the inspectors (this was contested by the administration). The students then declared that they protested not only for themselves and their teachers, but also for students of future generations. The administration expressed their wishes to supervise the event – which provoked strong reaction from students, and the following reply of a young class delegate: “by saying that, you are telling us that you do not trust us”. Consensus was reached by a student delegate confirming the time and place of the strike as asked to do so by the administration to “warn teachers and elementary students”, and in return the administration assured the students that no one would be punished for participating. In the end, the debate was very civilized and cultivated healthy discussion, says the report of the APEEE of EEB4[84]. It must be pointed out that it was not only the students of EEB4 who showed such healthy fighting spirit; other stakeholders have heard the pleas of the locally recruited teachers and are also fighting against the crisis at EEB4 and beyond. According to worker’s unions and the APEEE of EEB4 (with the support of the APEEE of Brussels I, II, III and Interparents), the administration neglected to take care of its locally recruited teachers and could have done more to prevent the current situation, even in face of this directive from the Board of Governors. And the Board of Governors is accused of taking a harsh step without much thought to the human implications. In an email titled “Note to Mr Oettinger: The Situation at the European School of Laeken (EEB IV)”[85], 7 trade unions[86] wrote a joint letter to Mr. Oettinger in light of this situation. The unions argue that out of the 33 locally recruited teachers who are to be dismissed, some are natives. In other words, some native teachers will be replaced by non-natives; this is at odds with the rule of “the appointment of a non-native speaker should remain a pragmatic and exceptional answer to a scarcity situation” as per the official document passed by the Board of Governors.[87] In addition, none of the exemptions that were available for use (mentioned above) were employed, and there are problems with the qualifications of the seconded teachers[88] – in reply to the non-usage of the exemptions, the administration has claimed that they were not informed of the possibility, a claim which the APEEE of EEB4 has backed up. According to the letter of the unions, this violates the principle of equal treatment in European law: “Often, LRTs are discriminated against because they are considered ‘second-class’ teachers, easily dispensable and sorely undervalued, in spite of the fact that they have shown tremendous skill, dedication and commitment in their efforts to help build reputable European schools where European values are cherished and embraced by children of all ages. We have heard that, among the teachers proposed for redundancy, there is a teacher of African origin (the only one in the school), a pregnant teacher, a couple with young children, and two teachers close to retirement”. All teachers, regardless of their contract type, should be treated equally. In an open letter by the APEEE of EEB4, in addition to supporting many of the arguments by the workers’ unions, it is said that this new directive of the Board Of Governors to meet the quota of 70% seconded teachers has led, at least in EEB4, to the administration laying off locally recruited French teachers in favor of seconded and mostly non-native French teachers. This is illogical, since there is no shortage of native French teachers in Belgium, and the locally recruited posts are attractive to native French teachers in Belgium[89].

Figure 7: The students of EEB4 protest in defence of their LRT teachers on the 12th of March. Source: https://www.rtbf.be/info/regions/bruxelles/detail_les-eleves-de-l-ecole-europeenne-iv-a-laeken-manifestent-pour-garder-leurs-professeurs?id=10168041

5. THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

This is only one case study, for one of the European Schools. This new directive paves the way for similar incidents across the European Schools and the loss of a significant number of locally recruited teachers, who are crucial to the well-functioning of our community. Of course, It does not have to be this way. If we dare to reform the system from the ground-up, we can avoid this sustained crisis and we can recover from the collective failure of leadership of the Board of Governors. With the looming Brexit, the situation could deteriorate even more[90]. In all of these complaints, starting from the European Parliament, to the United Kingdom, to the sustained crisis of the decline in the contribution of the Member States, the pleas of teachers, of students (e.g. CdEs and the CoSup), of workers’ unions, and of parents, concrete proposals have been formulated by the different stakeholders[91]. Some are radical, others are moderate, and a few, in recent times, are aimed at fixing the problems with language qualifications and the humane way of balancing of LRTs to the seconded teachers. In 2011, when it was clear that the 2009 reforms were not working, multiple solutions were proposed and debated. One of these was the implementation of a pro-rata financial system. This could have taken the form of each Member State paying the national average cost per pupil to the European Schools, or the host country in which the European School is situated in paying the cost. It could have taken the form of a GNP-based (Gross National Product) system, where the distribution of the costs of the European Schools would be proportional to the GNP of each Member State. Another form of this would have been a pro-rata model based on the number of pupils from each nationality enrolled across all the European Schools. All this would have meant that the Member States continue seconding their teachers, but while not going above their thresholds. If a Member State fails to meet the threshold, it would have to pay for the cost of secondments from other Member States based on one of these calculation system. The Host Country Language measure would have tried to counter the rise of SWALS, that is Students Without A Language Section, which resulted in a larger need for French, English and German teachers from Member States and would have tried to better balance the distribution of students and seconded teachers by creating new language sections and more L2 options (e.g. Lithuanian L1, L2 Spanish and L2 Italian), since with more language sections, more Member States can meet their quotas and there is less of a need for the highly-demanded English et al. secondments. This was rejected[92] due to its ineffectivity and the cost of creating these new sections. An increase of fees for pupils (either Category I, Category II or III) to compensate for the general deficit in the budget of the European Schools was proposed, but the study of the Budgetary Committee found that this would not generate enough revenue. Ideas which would have needed a modification to the Convention of 1994 were also discussed; no further secondments happen, and the vacancies are filled by the individual European School advertising in all Member States, and funding would come “on a pro rata basis, according to the number of their pupils, representing the average cost per pupil”. The 2011 delegation of the United Kingdom to the Board of Governors proposed firstly that (as per Article 25.1 of the 1994 Convention) the Member States make a further financial contribution to cover their lack of seconded staff – this contribution would be based on the number of pupils enrolled at the European Schools (Option 1), and secondly the delegation proposed a quota system which allows for the employment non-native speakers (the latter, Option 2 was adopted to some extent, but was ineffective). More radical ideas were also proposed by the 2011 United Kingdom delegation and other entities. The extension of the Munich Model across all European Schools was brought up, which would imply a change to the 1994 Convention. The European School of Munich uses a completely different cost-sharing system to the rest of the European Schools[93] – firstly, the budget that is needed by the European School of Munich after other contributions (e.g. Member States) is provided fully by the European Patent Office. The European Patent Office is in Munich – in other words, the European Institution benefiting from the European School in its vicinity, as was the goal of the European Schools as per the 1994 Convention[94] (the children of the staff of the EPO receive their education at European School of Munich) is the one who has the responsibility to provide funds for the different between the school’s total expenditure and total income. Furthermore, according to the Munich Model, the European Commission also makes a payment to the European School in Munich based on the number of students at the school from European Institutions (with a formula that takes into account the cost per-pupil at European School of Munich, which is made to be the same as the cost per-pupil of the EPO). Thirdly, the European School of Munich fully reimburses to the Member States the salaries that they paid to their seconded teachers. This is radically different than the rest of the European Schools. In this case, the European Schools would not receive a financial contribution from the Member States, only the teachers. The question is who would pay for the rest – In 2011, the figure for the deficit this would create was 55 million euros[95]. In practice, it would have been the European Commission who would have paid (understandably, the European Commission did not find this model appropriate). Building on the Munich Model, a modified version of the model appeared in February 2012 – simply put, the Member States would contribute pro rata to the number of their nationals in the European Schools (and possibly other criteria, such as the contribution of the Member States to the European Union’s budget), but the European Schools would also pay back the Member State for the cost of secondment. So, country “A” seconds a number of teachers as per the quota and contributes financially based on its nationals enrolled at the European Schools. Country “B” does the same, but it contributes more because more nationals of that country are enrolled at the European Schools. In the end, all the costs of the Member States are paid back except for their financial contribution based on the percentage of nationals enrolled. Based on this, and in the same document, a “pragmatic approach” was proposed, since the aforementioned system “would not seem to offer a solution in the short term”. It referenced the United Kingdom proposal, Option 2, namely the objective of bringing the ratio of secondments of the Member States into closer balance with the percentage of nationals enrolled, and yet again the possibility of the Member States paying a financial contributions if they do not meet their thresholds – in the words of the United Kingdom delegation: “This option would mean the abandonment of the custom in the European Schools that all teachers should be ‘native speakers’, unless other Member States were prepared to reimburse the costs of providing such teachers.”. This pragmatic approach, which seems to be a complete proposal, could have offered a viable solution to the problem. It consisted of the following procedure. Firstly, Member States who second a disproportionate number of teachers (e.g. the United Kingdom) would be free to reduce its secondment to its threshold. Following the Munich Model, for the vacant post(s) created by this, the salary would be paid back by the European School. The fund for paying these vacant posts back would be taken from a collective fund created from the financial contributions of all the Member States who are below the threshold of seconded teachers. If the Member State would have difficulty paying into the fund, the Board of Governors would be tasked with identifying all possible posts where those Member States could second non-native speakers teachers – if despite the willingness of the Member States to second no suitable post can be identified, no financial contribution would be required. The number of posts reimbursed by the European Schools would be limited by the collective fund, or alternatively the amount of money required to reimburse all the seconded posts would be provided for by the European Commission. Looking at this proposal retrospectively, it would have led to the slow but gradual rebalancing of the percentage of locally recruited vs seconded teachers and would have certainly prevented the flip of the ratio after the exit of the United Kingdom from the system in April 2013. As such, a radical shake-up of the teaching staff would have only needed to happen once, or never, seeing that the United Kingdom may not have exited from the system were this system in place. We can only speculate that this proposal did not pass due to the unwillingness of the Member States to second; as stated in the original proposal document: “Even allowing for the fact that some Member States have made it clear that they would not be willing to make a financial contribution, this should be a sufficient basis to start the project.”. Instead of this reasonable solution, a meek solution was passed. The cost-sharing proposal still in force that passed on the 3rd of June 2014, in theory bound the Member States to fill their quotas. However, in practice the system has not worked out, its logic had shortfalls, and there were no safeguards in place to ensure the Member States fulfill their obligations. As mentioned before, the Member States needed to promise whether to send more teachers, or if they were aware that they could not, needed to promise to make a financial contribution. Each year, they promised to send more teachers, and the Board of Governors, due to political reasons, never once used its powers to formally ask or demand for a financial contribution as per Article 25.1 of the 1994 Convention. While the Member States made an effort to increase their secondments, with the exit of the United Kingdom (due to the failure of the system) and other reasons, the global number of seconded teachers decreased. This is how the ratio of locally recruited teachers to seconded teachers spectacularly flipped from 2007-2008, where 75% of all teachers were seconded, to 2018-2019, where only 53.5% are seconded. This resulted in a permanent change in the system – the failure of the cost-sharing solution could not be considered a full failure. The human elements of the European Schools adapted. Locally recruited teachers became permanent, not just in their continuously renewing contracts, but in the hearts of students, staff, parents and the administration alike.

And now, the oligarchy of a few suits who sit on the Board of Governors and in the European Commission want to ruin it all, for purely political and financial reasons, by indirectly removing the locally recruited teachers from their beloved communities in which they are themselves beloved. The time for fixing the problem as the 2012 February proposal would have is gone. Today, the solution is an all-encompassing reform of the cost-sharing system, perhaps with elements of the 2012 February proposal, but which at the same time guarantees the indispensability of the locally recruited teachers. In short, a solution which accepts the human adaptations of the European Schools system in response to the failures of the 2014 April reforms, and one which does not try to uproot it all. Let us be remined that this proposal has not yet passed, and there is still time to let our voices be heard – it will be decided at the Board of Governors meeting on the 9th-12th April 2019. All that is the result of history hitherto is nothing more than the result of impulses so strong, so powerful, that their very existences proceed to temporarily overpower the existing status quo(s), and in the gap that appears are able to instill a new status quo. As such, as we stand at an impasse that will decide the future of the European Schools, I call upon our community to assemble, to convene as a united front and to resist the directive recently proposed by the Board of Governors. Only through this can we secure our right place in the momentum of history of the European Schools, only through this can we ensure the continued democracy and humanity of the European Schools for the future and it is only through this that we can effect real change in our system.

Finally, in the words of Dylan Thomas[96], the Welsh poet, as quoted by the original Locally Recruited Teacher’s Plea[97]:

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;

Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,

Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;

These five kings did a king to death.

March 2019

Laszlo Molnarfi

  1. Private correspondence with the CdE of EEB4 says 100, and the APEEE of EEB4 says 300.
  2. https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/SW1_21994A0817-en.pdf, Article 3
  3. https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/SW1_21994A0817-en.pdf, Article 8
  4. See also the European Patent Office (for ES Munich), European Investment Bank/European Investment Fund (for ES Luxembourg since 2016), EUIPO (for ES Alicante since 2017) and ECB (for ES Frankfurt since 2017); with the right to vote only on matters relating to the ES covered by their agreements. From https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2018:0152:FIN:EN:PDF
  5. https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/SW1_21994A0817-en.pdf, Article 25
  6. The budget of the European Union is also provided for to some extend by the Member States, but is then redistributed back to the Member States: http://eu2013.ie/ireland-and-the-presidency/abouttheeu/theeuexplained/howtheeuisfinanced/ (“Member State contributions, based on a percentage of their Gross National Income” and “However, over 75% of the budget is distributed directly to Member States, who are responsible for allocating funds. Member States then report back to the Commission on how the money was spent.”) / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#cite_note-Europa_Budget_Data_2014-20
  7. https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/2011-04-D-14-en-9.pdf, Section 1 – Basic Salary
  8. And in addition, the buildings, their infrastructure works, and maintenance are provided by the host country (e.g. in Belgium, it is the Regie Des Batiments).
  9. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/Brochure-en.pdf, p. 9
  10. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:C:2006:193E:FULL&from=NL#ntr2-CE2006193EN.01033301-E0002
  11. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C:2004:031E:FULL&from=EN
  12. http://gudee.eu/Finance/2011-07-D-8-en-3.doc, p.2
  13. http://gudee.eu/Finance/2011-07-D-8-en-3.doc, p. 18
  14. http://gudee.eu/Finance/2011-07-D-8-en-3.doc, p. 2
  15. http://gudee.eu/Finance/2011-07-D-8-en-3.doc
  16. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2014-02-D-14-en-3.pdf, p. 5
  17. http://gudee.eu/Finance/2011-07-D-8-en-3.doc
  18. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A7-2011-0293+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
  19. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2011-02-D-39-en-2.pdf and http://gudee.eu/Finance/2011-07-D-8-en-3.doc
  20. http://gudee.eu/Finance/2012-01-D-9-fr-2.doc, “Extrait du projet de procès-verbal de la réunion du Conseil supérieur des 6-8 décembre 2011 concernant les débats relatifs au document 2011-07-D-8-fr-3 : Cost sharing”: All Member States wanted something different and there was no unanimous agreement, but they set up a working group for the issue.

  21. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2013-02-D-21-en-2.pdf page 39 / Working group: https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf, p. 47
  22. https://luxtimes.lu/archives/23313-european-school-parents-make-urgent-plea
  23. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2013-02-D-21-en-2.pdf, p. 40
  24. http://europeanschooluxembourg2.eu/europe-day-european-schools-in-crisis/
  25. http://gudee.eu/qualite/GU_United KingdomStatement201304.pdf
  26. Facts and Figures: https://www.eursc.eu/en/Office/reports-statistics
  27. https://euobserver.com/education/31986, 1st paragraph
  28. https://euobserver.com/education/31986, 18th paragraph
  29. https://luxtimes.lu/luxembourg/36646-european-school-plans-to-improve-contracts-to-attract-teachers
  30. https://www.politico.eu/article/european-schools-european-problems/
  31. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2014-01-D-23-en-2.pdf, p. 40
  32. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-10-D-17-en-2.pdf, p.1 Annex 1 (latest mechanism)
  33. http://gudee.eu/Finance/2013-07-D-18-en-5.docx: „For example: A Member State with a shortfall of ten posts in December 2014 would be requested to contribute for the 2015 budget either a sum equivalent to two times national average salary, or otherwise it should second two additional teachers.”
  34. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2015-01-D-70-en-2.pdf, p. 45 and http://gudee.eu/Finance/Munichmodel.doc (Feb 2012, the Munich Model, « Even allowing for the fact that some Member States have made it clear that they would not be willing to make a financial contribution, this should be a sufficient basis to start the project.”)
  35. 1994 Convention Article 25.1 and “At the December Board of Governors’ meeting, each Member State is requested to take a position on the creation of new posts. If the Member State prefers to second teachers, it can indicate this at the meeting.” (https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf, p. 48).
  36. https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/SW1_21994A0817-en.pdf, Article 9
  37. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2015-01-D-70-en-2.pdf, p. 46 and https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2016-01-D-50-en-2.pdf, p. 49 and https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2017-01-D-10-en-2.pdf, p. 48
  38. See document 2013-07-D-18-EN-5 (http://gudee.eu/Finance/2013-07-D-18-en-5.docx) for a detailed explanation on the 2014 quota system (“Cost Sharing – the Structural Model”). For example:

    If in the first year there were 100 posts, and Hungary owed 5%, they owed 5 teachers.

    if only 80 posts were filled, the next year, the total was counted as 80 posts, and Hungary only owed 4 teachers—all other things being equal.

    Thus, the total requirement actually spiraled down as the number of students continued to increase.

  39. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf, p. 52
  40. http://gudee.eu/Finance/costsharing_pres1.ppt
  41. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf, p. 57
  42. https://u4unity.eu/ecolx_arch1.htm#bud2013
  43. https://u4unity.eu/ecolx_arch1.htm#bud2013
  44. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2011-10-D-30-en-2.pdf p. 5
  45. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-10-D-17-en-2.pdf p. 12
  46. The total budget increased only 11.8% from 2011-2012 to 2017-2018: https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2012-01-D-55-en-2.pdf p.18 and https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf p.25
  47. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-01-D-58-en-2.pdf p. 48
  48. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-12-D-8-en-3.pdf p. 8 and https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-04-D-11-en-3.pdf p. 13
  49. Creation and suppression of seconded posts in the

    nursery, primary and secondary cycles – 2019-2020 (*)

    school year: https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2018-10-D-20-en-4.pdf

  50. Control of the level of linguistic competence as

    part of the procedure for recruitment of nonnative speaker teaching and educational

    support staff: https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/2018-01-D-65-en-3.pdf

  51. https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/2011-04-D-14-en-9.pdf p. 22
  52. EEB4 CdE’s Informal Report: https://www.facebook.com/eeb4cde/posts/2536831996358574
  53. Creation and suppression of seconded posts in the

    nursery, primary and secondary cycles – 2019-2020 (*)

    school year: https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2018-10-D-20-en-4.pdf, p. 1

  54. EEB4 CdE’s Informal Report: https://www.facebook.com/eeb4cde/posts/2536831996358574
  55. http://gudee.eu/DOC2016/2018-03-D-7-en-2.pdf, p. 14
  56. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-12-D-8-en-3.pdf, p. 6
  57. http://www.uccleparents.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/BoG-DEC-2018.pdf, p. 3
  58. “At the Administrative Board meetings in September-October 2018 the Directors were requested to list all posts currently hold by Locally Recruited Teachers which do fulfil the requirements for the creation of a seconded post (full time table and likelihood that the post will be needed over the coming nine years). These lists had to include also information as to whether the posts could be filled by non-native speaker teachers in accordance with the language policy of the European Schools.”,Creation and suppression of seconded posts in the

    nursery, primary and secondary cycles – 2019-2020 (*)

    school year: https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2018-10-D-20-en-4.pdf, p. 1

  59. EEB4 CdE’s Informal Report: https://www.facebook.com/eeb4cde/posts/2536831996358574
  60. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-12-D-8-en-3.pdf, p. 7
  61. https://www.politico.eu/article/teachers-complain-of-unfair-treatment-at-european-schools/ and https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT-1-Point-10_Plea-from-Locally-Hired-Teachers_Redacted.pdf, p. 1. Additionally, even the current contract negotiated in 2016 has the following paragraph (Article 25): “Locally recruited teachers shall perform their duties and conduct themselves solely in the interests of the School, in accordance, in particular, with the instructions laid down in the General Rules of the European Schools and with the school rules,” which can be used to intimidate.
  62. http://www.gudee.eu/DOC2016/2017-01-D-51-en-3.docx and https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/2016-05-D-11-en-4.pdf
  63. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT-1-Point-10_Plea-from-Locally-Hired-Teachers_Redacted.pdf
  64. http://www.gudee.eu/DOC2016/2017-10-D-54-en-3.docx (1.2)
  65. Another issue is the inspections; as originally intended, the Member States send their own national inspectors (e.g. A Hungarian sent to teach Hungarian). But when non-natives are sent to teach languages in other subject, the inspectors are lost, since they have been trained to inspect teaching as in their own country. (e.g. A Hungarian teacher is sent to teach English). Locally recruited teachers are inspected by the individual European School. See the 1994 Convention, Chapter 2: https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/SW1_21994A0817-en.pdf .
  66. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Notes-of-EEB1.pdf and https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1819-CSUP-006-4-Meeting-2-Agenda-Draft-4.docx
  67. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CoSup-report-final-draft.docx and https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1819-CSUP-015-Agenda-Meeting-3-Lux.docx
  68. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/3rd-Meeting-report-public.docx (CoSup said that they will try to suggest 50-50 instead of 70-30 at the upcoming Board of Governors on the 9th-12th April 2019)
  69. https://www.eursc.eu/Documents/2018-10-D-17-en-2.pdf, p. 19
  70. http://www.gudee.eu/DOC2016/2017-10-D-54-en-3.docx (1.2)
  71. Instagram of the EEB4’s CdE (eeb4cde), March 5th, comment by “giulianalocchi” and other credible, but unnamed sources.
  72. “In the light of the BREXIT the

    Administrative Board were permitted to exempt posts requiring English native speakers.”, https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2018-10-D-20-en-4.pdf

  73. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT_Open-letter-March-2019.pdf and https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT_Roundcube-Webmail-__-Fw_-Note-to-Mr-Oettinger_-The-Situation-at-the-European-School-of-Laeken-EEB-IV_Redacted.pdf: “In addition, in view of Brexit, native LRTs teaching Math, Chemistry and English

    (L2 and L3) could have been exempted from the posts opened up for secondment, but this exemption was not used at EEB IV” and “Administrative Boards (…) not [to] mention the posts needing teachers whose native (or first) language is English (p. 3 of document 2019-02-D-14-en-2 Posts of seconded teachers envisaged for the 2019-2020 school year)” as per the open letter of the APEEE of EEB4 (with the support of the APEEE of Brussels I, II, III and Interparents).

  74. EEB4 CdE’s Informal Report: https://www.facebook.com/eeb4cde/posts/2536831996358574
  75. Instagram of the EEB4’s CdE (eeb4cde), March 5th, comment by “giulianalocchi”.
  76. EEB4 CdE’s Informal Report: https://www.facebook.com/eeb4cde/posts/2536831996358574
  77. https://www.facebook.com/events/258608185032357/?active_tab=discussion
  78. Informal report of the APEEE of EEB4 and a parent sent out on the 12th of March after the meeting, with the subject “: URGENT: student strike on Tuesday 12 March (TODAY)”. The original informal report is not intended for public dissemination, and as such it is not linked. The official report can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/APEEE-Letter-to-the-EEB-IV-Community-and-Call-for-Meeting-1-April-2019.docx .
  79. As enshrined in Article 11 and Article 12 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:12012P/TXT&from=EN
  80. https://www.eursc.eu/en/Office/reports-statistics
  81. Posts document 2019-02-DD-14-en-2 (Posts of seconded teachers envisaged for the 2019-2020 school year with statistics, concrete posts and rules/exemptions) is confidential currently.
  82. Informal report of the APEEE of EEB4 and a parent sent out on the 12th of March after the meeting, with the subject “: URGENT: student strike on Tuesday 12 March (TODAY)”. The original informal report is not intended for public dissemination, and as such it is not linked. The official report can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/APEEE-Letter-to-the-EEB-IV-Community-and-Call-for-Meeting-1-April-2019.docx .
  83. This is supported by the parents.

    “Specifically, the school’s administrative board was never made aware of the permission granted to “Administrative Boards (…) not [to] mention the posts needing teachers whose native (or first) language is English” (p. 3 of document 2019-02-D[D]-14-en-2 Posts of seconded teachers envisaged for the 2019-2020 school year).

    This omission has potentially led to native English speaking locally recruited teachers being replaced with non-native English speaking secondments.”, https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT_Open-letter-March-2019.pdf

  84. Informal report of the APEEE of EEB4 and a parent sent out on the 12th of March after the meeting, with the subject “: URGENT: student strike on Tuesday 12 March (TODAY)”. The original informal report is not intended for public dissemination, and as such it is not linked. The official report can be found at https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/APEEE-Letter-to-the-EEB-IV-Community-and-Call-for-Meeting-1-April-2019.docx .
  85. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT_Roundcube-Webmail-__-Fw_-Note-to-Mr-Oettinger_-The-Situation-at-the-European-School-of-Laeken-EEB-IV_Redacted.pdf
  86. R&D, TAO-AFI, SFE, CONF-CISL, USL, SE/R&D, Save Europea
  87. https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/2018-01-D-65-en-3.pdf,
  88. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT_Open-letter-March-2019.pdf and https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT_Roundcube-Webmail-__-Fw_-Note-to-Mr-Oettinger_-The-Situation-at-the-European-School-of-Laeken-EEB-IV_Redacted.pdf
  89. “In particular, the secondment of non-native French speaking teachers to Brussels to teach in French, in primary or secondary, defies common sense, since there is no scarcity of native French speaking teachers in Belgium. Moreover, European School salaries are slightly above those of the local Belgian schools, which means that its French speaking teaching positions are likely to be very attractive to domestic native French speaking teachers.” (Open letter to the National Inspectors for the European School system of the APEEE March 2019)
  90. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/OFFSEN-Letter-of-OSGES-FINAL-clean.pdf, 30th January 2019: “[The United Kingdom has]

    today written to all our seconded teachers to inform them that in the event of a no deal exit, their employment as a United Kingdom seconded teacher to the European School system is likely to be ended in 2019 unless we can reach an arrangement with the European Schools system 2019 for the United Kingdom to continue its contribution until 31 August 2020.”

  91. For all the solutions proposed: http://gudee.eu/Finance/costsharing_pres1.ppt and http://www.gudee.eu/Finance/Cost-sharing-Presentation.pdf and http://gudee.eu/Finance/2011-07-D-8-en-3.doc and http://gudee.eu/Finance/Munichmodel.doc (Munich Model)
  92. It must be however pointed out that with the renewed impetus of dealing with the issue of cost-sharing, all these options are on the table again.
  93. Different history and a different agreement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Schools, “The Spread of the European Schools”
  94. “for the education together of children of the staff of the European

    Communities”, https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/SW1_21994A0817-en.pdf

  95. http://gudee.eu/Finance/Munichmodel.doc (Munich Model)
  96. https://www.internal.org/Dylan_Thomas/The_Hand_that_Signed_the_Paper_Felled_a_City
  97. https://13stars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LRT-1-Point-10_Plea-from-Locally-Hired-Teachers_Redacted.pdf, p. 5

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