Dear Parents,

As you know, the UK government has stopped seconding teachers to the European Schools. This is a matter of high concern to the Board of the Parents' Association. The Board has therefore sent a letter to Mr. John Russel, Head of EU Policy and European Schools at the UK Department of Eductaion. You can find the letter here.

Mr. Russel responded by e-mail on May 23. His response is cited below:

"Mr Obisesan

Thank you for your email of 20 May with the letter attached from your ESF Parents Association .

I understand from the Director at Frankfurt that he met with you and your colleagues recently to clarify the school's  position regarding its teacher cadre for the school year starting September 2013. Although I well understand the concern felt by parents, I hope you are now reassured that the Frankfurt school is currently well placed to meet the challenges of the next academic year.

It is my understanding that with a teacher transferring in from Karlsruhe, the retention of two existing teachers as charge de cours and a successful recruitment exercise to fill the biology and chemistry position, only one post, for a teacher of economics ,remains to be filled. As you probably are aware an advertisement is currently being placed in the Times Educational Supplement in the UK inviting applications from qualified teachers. Consequently, Mr Friss believes that, despite the initial uncertainity that flowed from the UK's statement to the Board of Governors in April, there should, happily,  be no grounds for concern among parents in Frankfurt.

I met with parents of students in both Brussels and Luxembourg recently because there were significant numbers of UK teachers leaving the ES system in August in these schools and, therefore, there was a need to explain the process for replacing these teachers and the assistance that the UK was prepared to offer. The situation in Frankfurt is very different (as Mr Friss has explained), consequently we have no plans to conduct a similar exercise in your location at this time.

Finally, you may be interested to note, that the issue of European schools funding regime was discussed by Education Ministers at the Education Council last week, and the Secretary-General was mandated to work with the ES Troika , and the EU Presidency to find a solution to be agreed at an emergency meeting of the Board of Governors planned for September. An agreed funding and cost sharing solution would be ratified at a special meeting of EU Education Ministers in the autumn. Work on this process is already well advanced and we certainly hope that the resulting resolution will provide an acceptable solution and the long term financial sustainability for all European schools.

Thank you for writing on this important matter.

                                jr

John Russell
Head - EU Policy & European Schools
International Education Division
Department for Education"


The Board is following up on this topic. A response letter has been sent to Mr. Russel on June 5 - you find this letter here.