Annual Report on the Functioning of the European Schools System

This is the first Annual Report from the European Commission to the European Parliament on the Functioning of the European Schools System. It follows a request from the European Parliament in the Bsch Report in 2002 on the future financing of the European Schools (ES). The present report presents an overview of the principal aspects of the functioning of the ES today (with comparative figures to identify major trends), and focuses on an examination of the pupil population, the staffing, the main pedagogical issues and financing. The Report goes on to highlight the key challenges facing the ES: the consequences of enlargement, the need to take account of the creation of EU Agencies and widen the availability of the European Baccalaureate, the governance of the school system, the difficult conditions of the large ES in Brussels and Luxembourg and the future of the small schools, particularly in view of the very small number of cat 1 pupils in the latter.