In defence of the European Schools - An open letter in response to POLITICO

Last week, the European edition of POLITICO published an article about the European Schools. The Euroschools rarely attract any press coverage and the internet has remained generally free of journalists caring about our system until now. Once their article appeared on the front page of their website, thousands of students and parents instantly read their critique of the European Schools.

The article was clearly a hit. After four days it remained the second most read article on the POLITICO website, receiving even more views than the coverage of the Greek crisis. It painted a misleading picture of a crumbling education system that alienated most of its students through bureaucracy, and ignoring nationality in a school system resembling a Kafkaesque nightmare. Contact with students as well as graduates and parents upheld our view that the article was misguided and prioritized controversy over fact. In fact, after talking to one of the students who was quoted in the article, it surfaced that her positive outlook of the schools had been overshadowed by cherry-picked criticisms.

Misconceptions

We'd like to begin by clarifying some of the misconceptions that were the basis for many of the criticisms in POLITICO's report.

"Suddenly, the system had to accommodate Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Czechs, Slovaks, and more, many of whom wanted their children educated not in their native tongue but in English or French, more “useful” languages, despite the fact that most of them have their own language sections anyway."

Students of the nationalities above are named SWALS: Students Without A Language Section. They take all their classes in one of the three working languages (English, French or German) but are still taught their mother tongue as a first language. SWAL students remain a minority and cannot be exclusively blamed for the current overpopulation crisis.

“Half of all students in the European Schools belong to the French language sections.”

This statistic is only true for one out of the fourteen European Schools. The POLITICO journalist focuses on the Brussels European schools and in 2014, the French section accounted for 31% of all students in Brussels. One Brussels school (EEBII) did not even reach 25%. Anyone acquainted with the schools knows that this is a natural consequence of Host Country Language dominance. A European School in Italy will have an unusually large Italian section, as will a German section in Germany. In fact, after verifying the statistics, this is a universal rule for all fourteen schools.

“A European School has to try and mimic the education systems of all 28 EU countries. Rather than being simply one school, each one is more like 28 mini-schools packed into one campus.”

Many students we spoke to found this statement to be far from true. Over the years the European School System has developed its own curriculum which ultimately brings students from all language sections together. As the founding aims state, which POLITICO quoted: "Educated side by side, untroubled from infancy by divisive prejudices, acquainted with all that is great and good in the different cultures, it will be borne in upon them as they mature that they belong together". By the time the students reach the end of secondary, they are intertwined through lessons, extracurricular activities, events, school trips and most importantly - lifelong friendships sustained through the different languages they have acquired.

“The teachers are told to grade according to the same standards while staying in line with their national marking systems.”

All teachers grade their students on a scale from 1 to 10. There are specific harmonised marking criteria that they are supposed to follow. These criteria hold for any student in the system, regardless of language section. However, it can happen that teachers may lapse from this and grade their students in a way they've been trained to do in their national system. This is sometimes blamed for a disparity of results between the sections. So to all current European School students reading this: if you feel like you are being unfairly marked by your teachers, do not hesitate to make use of the tools such as the marking criteria.

"The school buildings are also old and neglected."

The European Schools have modern, well equipped classrooms as well as up to date science and computer labs. To go so far as to call the buildings old and neglected when half of the Brussels schools were opened in the past 15 years and are extremely well maintained is quite misleading. The Brussels schools are currently being pushed beyond their capacity limit yet manage to cater to their students' needs. The article disproportionately magnifies the daily perils of European School students over a much larger problem. As mentioned by Mr. Kivinen, there is an urgent need for the creation of a fifth school in Brussels. Reforming other aspects of the system, although helpful, fails to resolve the ultimate problem in Brussels. The opening date of EEBV remains the elephant in the room.

Generalizations

POLITICO alleged that the European Schools are plagued with educational failings such as overcrowding and favouritism in a foredoomed system. No one is arguing that these issues do not occur inside the European Schools. However, it has been overlooked how widespread these problems are in most schools. The depressing statement that "One-third will be lost, one-third will succeed, and one-third will move from one thing to the other without knowing what to do" could be more or less said about any young adult in Europe today.

In the European schools, some may complain about class sizes being too large at the maximum of 30 students per room. Despite how problematic large classes can be for both teachers and students, the EU average class size fluctuates at around 20 students per class. Contrary to the impression given by the article, the average class size in a European school in 2012 was 15 students. Fundamentally, the Brussels schools are overpopulated, but this is mostly outside the classrooms. It is important to note that the problems that occur in the European Schools of Brussels do not necessarily apply to all other European Schools. For instance, there are schools which suffer from under population and have in some cases had to close entire language sections.

Another very clear example of a crisis which is universal to education in every corner of the globe is favouritism. "If a teacher doesn’t like your kid, the teacher can make him or her have bad marks, without any justification". There are ways in which a student or a parent can address issues with teachers. With these complaint procedures, overcoming issues such as favouritism is as possible in the European Schools as in any other.

Conclusion

The European Schools provide their students with a quality education and function at remarkable levels despite the pressure they're under. The language diversity which is often blamed for causing many problems is, in fact, one of the greatest strengths of the schools. The system is far from flawless, but it deserves to be given credit where credit is due. It is such an innovative and original system that certain member states have begun to adopt it in newly accredited schools. Another unique aspect of the schools is how involved the staff and students are in the decision-making process. Teachers, parents and students are present from minor internal meetings all the way to the Board of Governors. The structure is purposefully built so that the independent student body (CoSup as well as individual student committees) can communicate students' wishes as well as take part in the general dialogue. Thanks to this uncommon feature, the statistics we have used in this open letter were made available to us during our time occupying various roles within CoSup.

As a final response to the POLITICO article, blanket statements blaming every aspect of a system do nothing to expose the real threat to it. So we turn to our readers to remind them that the European Schools remain outstanding institutions. We are not the unfortunate and suffering students that POLITICO seeks to portray. Rather, we are a generation of third culture kids, raised to see beyond our borders and we are proud of it. The most important lessons we learned in school, we learned outside the classroom. If it is to be said that "the crisis in the European Schools reflects the crisis in the European Union", then the opposite must also be true:

The virtues of the European Schools reflect the virtues of the European Union.

Sincerely,

Miriam Matthiessen and Oisín Nolan

European School of Brussels II Alumni, Class of 2014