- 2018Approved/Agreed
Background
Setting up new governance of national education and making the education debate more objective.
Objectives
The National Programme Council was created to allow for more exchange and debate around education matters and bridging the education and professional worlds.
Description
The National Programme Council was created in 2018. It is an autonomous body and provides advice to the Minister concerning school programmes and their design. It analyses societal change (political, environmental, economic, digital, humanitarian, cultural) and their possible effects on the Luxembourgish education system and programmes. It provides advisory opinions or recommendations on curricula, on its own initiative as well as on request of the Minister.
The Council consists of eight persons (at least three women and three men), appointed by the Minister for a three-year mandate based on their experience and competences in different domains such as culture, economy, environment, civil society or digitisation. The Council considers observations of the National Observatory for School Quality about research related to curricula and policies, both at national and international levels. It consults public administration and organs, as well as other parties whose standpoints it assumes to be necessary to take into account. If necessary, it can request from the Minister to seek support by external experts, research institutes and universities. The Council's mission is to launch public forums (to be organised by the SCRIPT) on specific topics related to the evolution of society and curricula, during which representatives of civil society analyse and discuss requirements of the school system. It publishes reports of the...
The National Programme Council was created in 2018. It is an autonomous body and provides advice to the Minister concerning school programmes and their design. It analyses societal change (political, environmental, economic, digital, humanitarian, cultural) and their possible effects on the Luxembourgish education system and programmes. It provides advisory opinions or recommendations on curricula, on its own initiative as well as on request of the Minister.
The Council consists of eight persons (at least three women and three men), appointed by the Minister for a three-year mandate based on their experience and competences in different domains such as culture, economy, environment, civil society or digitisation. The Council considers observations of the National Observatory for School Quality about research related to curricula and policies, both at national and international levels. It consults public administration and organs, as well as other parties whose standpoints it assumes to be necessary to take into account. If necessary, it can request from the Minister to seek support by external experts, research institutes and universities. The Council's mission is to launch public forums (to be organised by the SCRIPT) on specific topics related to the evolution of society and curricula, during which representatives of civil society analyse and discuss requirements of the school system. It publishes reports of the discussions, completed by its analyses, conclusions and recommendations.
Bodies responsible
- Chamber of Deputies
Target groups
Learners
- Learners in upper secondary, including apprentices
Education professionals
- School leaders
Thematic categories
Governance of VET and lifelong learning
This thematic category looks at existing legal frameworks providing for strategic, operational – including quality assurance – and financing arrangements for VET and lifelong learning (LLL). It examines how VET and LLL-related policies are placed in broad national socioeconomic contexts and coordinate with other strategies and policies, such as economic, social and employment, growth and innovation, recovery and resilience.
This thematic category covers partnerships and collaboration networks of VET stakeholders – especially the social partners – to shape and implement VET in a country, including looking at how their roles and responsibilities for VET at national, regional and local levels are shared and distributed, ensuring an appropriate degree of autonomy for VET providers to adapt their offer.
The thematic category also includes efforts to create national, regional and sectoral skills intelligence systems (skills anticipation and graduate tracking) and using skills intelligence for making decisions about VET and LLL on quality, inclusiveness and flexibility.
This thematic sub-category refers both to formal mechanisms of stakeholder engagement in VET governance and to informal cooperation among stakeholders, which motivate shared responsibility for quality VET. Formal engagement is usually based on legally established institutional procedures that clearly define the role and responsibilities for relevant stakeholders in designing, implementing and improving VET. It also refers to establishing and increasing the degree of autonomy of VET providers for agile and flexible VET provision.
In terms of informal cooperation, the sub-category covers targeted actions by different stakeholders to promote or implement VET. This cooperation often leads to creating sustainable partnerships and making commitments for targeted actions, in line with the national context and regulation, e.g. national alliances for apprenticeships, pacts for youth or partnerships between schools and employers. It can also include initiatives and projects run by the social partners or sectoral organisations or networks of voluntary experts and executives, retired or on sabbatical, to support their peers in the fields of VET and apprenticeships, as part of the EAfA.
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). National Programme Council: Luxembourg. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/28353