Luxembourg offers a variety of schooling options. Broadly speaking, schools fall into seven categories.
There is no publicly available data resource at this time which can document standards or outcomes of individual schools or of types of schools.
The ‘basic’ Luxembourg public system.
Teaching is typically multilingual, however the assumption is made that all children will speak both German and the (very similar) Luxembourgish or quickly learn to. French is valuable, however Luxembourgish and German are insisted upon, and parents who do not speak these languages to their child at home are advised to find options for their child to be exposed to them, on their own initiative. The national language teaching service (INLL) does not offer lessons to those under 18.
In 2026, a minority of children (about 45%) in Luxembourg spoke Luxembourgish at home as their primary language, however this was the most common single language for children to speak (of more than 100 languages in total) MEN language survey. Geographic distribution of Luxembourgish speakers is very uneven, with high density areas in the North and East of the country.
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These schools offer practical and professional pathways alongside general education. Many mainstream schools will offer technical or vocational tracks alongside the general secondary streams. The “modulaire” form of vocational education typically includes placements in unskilled or semi-skilled employment such as food preparation or warehouse picking, such that the child will work part-time beginning at an early age and move seamlessly to full time employment (in theory) at the age of 18. The “generale” stream is not as formal or as rigorous as “classique” but nonetheless does permit progress to university if successful.
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Historically the more academic route leading towards university. Traditionally the emphasis here was on languages, even on ancient languages, however science and mathematics are now also taught.
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One of the most eminent of Luxembourgoise scientists, Michel Goedert, attended the Athenée. Complaints from parents (as any school will have) include inflexibility and pettiness, the notion of excellence pursued may tend to be more formal than it is inclusive.
Lycée Michel Lucius occupies a distinctive position within Luxembourg’s public secondary education landscape as the country’s only state school to offer education compatible with the UK iGCSE qualification (at 16) and Cambridge A levels (at 18). This is highly sought after, firstly as these qualifications are recognised at the many universities worldwide which teach in English, and also due to the modularity and flexibility of the GCSE system relative to the bacculauréate: for GCSE seven to nine subjects are typically selected from a list of more than twenty, permitting students to focus on their strengths. For A-level, 3-4 subjects are selected for deeper specialisation. LML also offers mainstream Luxembourgish public education towards the bacculauréate.
LML is a city centre school and not without its problems. Education in English is highly desired by incoming students from around the world, not only from English-speaking regions, as the globally dominant language of science, scholarship, and business. A consequence of this is that English speaking education communities tend to be highly diverse and may be called upon to accommodate very different attitudes and expectations.
In general the press is positive or silent about LML however it is a busy city centre school and problematic incidents do take place
State-funded schools offering international curricula and often taught partly in English, French, German or potentially some other language. These are recently established and have been much in demand, despite problematic results for the first cohorts to pass through. The most information available is for the oldest of these schools EIDE. These typically offer a Bacculaureate qualification which permits progress to university (assuming success).
Despite the “international” label these schools have a clear mission to standardise outputs: Luxembourgish is taught, and the language of instruction is typically switched to German or to French progressively for various subjects during the progress from age 5-18, regardless of the first language of the child or their level in the imposed target language.
Due to the multilingual nature of the typical international school intake, language teaching is by “immersion”: the teacher speaks in the foreign language but does not explain it. A useful attitude for students and parents to have is to regard the language teaching at school as supervised ‘language practice’ rather than as a complete resource for language learning.
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Teachers unions complain about governance of international schools
Teachers unions complain about lack of government oversight at international schools
The management of EI has a quite free hand even relative to the main body of the education system. This has led to incidences of overreach by egotistical characters followed by their denouncement to the police, with consequences which were amusing at least for gossip purposes School director suspended over guns and cocaine.
Schools offering the European Baccalaureate. These differ substantially from the state international schools in that they offer education in the child’s own language where it is possible and valuable to do so, for example giving lessons in Spanish or Greek if sufficient numbers of children speaking that language are available. There is a strong ambition to teach second and third languages, however switching of vehicular languages is not pursued as aggressively as at the EI.
Access to these schools is free or subsidised for EU institution employees. For the general public it is costly but not typically as expensive as a fully private education.
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Privately funded schools using international curricula.
St George’s has taken the unusual step (for Luxembourg) of paying a third party to inspect it, and publish the report of the inspection on their website. They are therefore the most transparent school. tri-annual reports
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Independent schools operating outside the standard public system.
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Schools with a particular educational focus.
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