Name of Educational Leave Scheme

Paid Educational leave

• Introduction
• Legal framework
• Objectives
• Types of training
• Training providers
• Target sector(s)
• Target group(s)
• Eligibility criteria
• Stipulations for participants
• Duration of training
• Status of participants
• Application procedure
• Regulation, control and monitoring procedures
• Funding mechanisms
• Payment to persons on leave
• Statistics

Despite not having signed ILO Convention 140 on paid educational leave, Luxembourg nonetheless has legislation on the subject. The first Law of October 1973 applies to company employees, public employees and civil servants, whilst the second one of 18 May 1979 only covers designated company staff representatives.

1. Law of October 1973:
Educational leave was introduced by the law of October 1973, as amended by the Laws of 27 February 1984 and 1 June 1989. Since this Law also applies to civil servants, it forms part of the amended Law of 16 April 1976, which establishes the general status of civil servants, and the subsequent Grand-Duchy Regulation of 22 August 1985, which provides that the leave system applies to civil servants and employees of the State, as amended by Chapter VIII Educational Leave Article 31. The implementing provisions are established by the Grand-Duchy Regulation of 22 February 1974 on the granting of educational leave.

The main purpose of this special leave is to allow young people in employment to take part in civic and social training, training and further training for youth leaders, and training and further training for co-ordinators of youth movements and cultural and sports associations, as long as the training and further training activity focuses essentially on young people.

Educational leave may also be granted to people in employment wishing to complete their vocational training by following official courses for adults both in their own country and abroad, or to those sitting official exams.

All types of civic and social training, training and further training for young leaders, and training and further training for co-ordinators of youth movements and cultural and sports associations, as long as the training and further training activity focuses essentially on young people. Also official courses for adults related to vocational training.

Officially recognised training providers.

Both public and private sector

Young civil servants and private sector employees

Applicants must meet certain criteria:

• they must have been employed in the public or private sector for a minimum of six months with the same employer.
• they must be resident in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg.
• they must in principle be under 30, but given the waivers foreseen it hardly applies in practice.

Educational leave may be refused if the application is turned down by the head of company on the grounds that the applicant's absence may hamper company operations and the smooth running of the service, or disrupt annual staff leave

Educational leave is limited to:

• 60 days throughout life
• 20 days per 2 year period
• a minimum of 2 days per unit unless it forms part of an organised series of courses, each of which lasts just one day.

They retain the same status that they had in the company before educational leave

The delegates wishing to follow training courses, have to apply for educational leave to the head of the company.

The main responsible for granting educational leave is the Head of the company.

As an upshot of the fact that training leave is staggered according to company size, course attendance tends in some way to shadow delegation election cycles. In other words, the drop in the number of representatives undergoing training during the same term depends on the number of hours allotted them in relation to the number of workers employed by the companies they represent.

Educational leave is granted by the head of company at the request of delegates wishing to follow training courses approved annually on the basis of a list drawn up in joint agreement by the employers' professional organisations and the most representative trade union organisations at national level.

The operating costs of the École supérieure de travail are covered by the State budget (budget line within the Ministry for Labour and Employment). Course registration is free.

AThe persons on leave receive their normal salary

1. The Law of October 1973

The following statistics, from the 1999 activity report of the above mentioned Ministry’s Department of Youth Affairs, give some idea of the scope of its application.

Trends in educational leave:

 

	1996	1997	1998	1999
‘Maîtrise’ level	669	679	675	614
Adult education	206	313	337	364
Training/Supervision	555	588	542	503
Total	1430	1580	1554	1481

Number of participants

Comparing the number of applications for adult education and training with the number of applications for training in youth leadership and supervision of youth activities, it can be seen that applications for adult training are following a constant upward trend, whilst the number of applications for youth leadership training and supervision of youth activities is falling.

Youth activity supervisors and youth leadership training:

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Youth Movements	255	150	275	286	207
Trade Unions	58	122	96	62	75
Sport	62	111	87	99	85
Culture	17	28	31	27	21
Social Organisations	53	89	36	31	64
Study tours	41	56	63	37	25
Total	486	556	588	542	477

Taking a closer look at the change in the number of days and the number of applications in the adult education field, it can be seen that between 1995 and 1999 the number of applications rose steadily, to stabilise over the last two years. The most striking aspect is the number of days granted, which rose from 722 in 1995 to 1855 in 1999.

Trends in days granted for adult education and for training and supervision of youth activities:

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Adult education	722	875	990	1509	1855
Youth training and supervision	2403	2309	2508	2573	2373

Applications for leave to sit the ‘maîtrise’ exam come under the scope of vocational training. Showing a constant rise until 1993, they then fell off considerably as of that date.

Trends in applications for youth supervision and training

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Supervision of youth activities	333	354	362	375	298
Training	310	130	135	166	204
Total	643	484	497	541	502

This drop could be explained by the general fall in the total number of candidates registering for exams.

Trends in applications for adult training

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
‘Maîtrise’	744	663	679	675	614
Training	175	206	312	337	364
Total	919	869	991	1012	978

As far as the background of those being granted educational leave is concerned, the private sector is predominant:

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Private sector	1049	1006	1145	1184	1140
Public sector	353	418	435	370	341
Total	1402	1424	1580	1554	1481

As far as gender distribution is concerned, the breakdown is as follows:

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Male	1141	1103	1160	1090	1071
Female	261	321	420	464	410
Total	1402	1424	1580	1554	1481

 

In 1999, the various payments made to private sector participants amounted to LUF 13.2 million, or EUR 327 219. This gives an average of EUR 227 per participant, with allowances for civil servants and State employees not featuring in the budget.

2. The amended Law of 18 May 1979, reforming staff delegations, as amended by the Laws of 3 April 1980 and 3 November 1983

In 1999, 23 weeks i.e. 920 hours of courses were organised for staff representatives. Due to linguistic requirements, 12 of the 23 courses were given in the Luxembourg language and 11 in French.

The following tables show the number of participants over the last three years by gender and nationality.

Breakdown according to gender:

	1997	1998	1999
Men	331	320	536
Women	48	37	113
Total	379	357	649

Breakdown according to nationality:

	1997	1998	1999
Luxembourg	204	196	313
French	62	56	135
German	18	16	37
Belgian	33	32	65
Italian	15	16	17
Portuguese	45	40	73
Other	2	1	9
Total	379	357	649

Trends in the number of participants since 1984

Reference year	Respective year of remit	Number of participants
1984	1st year	-
1985	2nd year	353
1986	3rd year	260
1987	4th year	319
1988	5th year	217
1989	1st year	320
1990	2nd year	341
1991	3rd year	378
1992	4th year	348
1993	5th year	315
1994	1st year	538
1995	2nd year	479
1996	3rd year	446
1997	4th year	379
1998	5th year	357
1999	1st year	649

The Law of 22 June 1999

A further aspect of Luxembourg's legislation can be linked to the question of paid educational leave without actually being part and parcel of it. It should be stressed that the Law of 22 June 1999 aims to support and develop ongoing vocational training, and as such is intended to regulate collective rather than individual access to vocational training. We mention this by way of information since Article 4 of the Law provides that only training projects or plans under which at least half the training takes place during working hours may benefit from the financial provisions. Since this Law only came into force on 1 January 2000, it is still too early to draw any conclusions about working hours spent in training.

Comment:

An inter-ministerial working party is currently working on legislation aimed at regulating individual access to continuing vocational training. It thus seems likely that current legislation on educational leave will also be revised.