VIGILANCIAS Y SUSTITUCIONES para DETACHÉS..

Ante las preguntas surgidas, os adjunto el documento que regula las vigilancias y sustituciones para el personal Detaché:

BOLETÍN 1843: ODYSEEY, StatuteCdC, Promotion, Unfilled posts, Caisse de Maladie..

PUBLISHED SINCE 1964

Comité du Personnel Staff Committee Personalrat

Ecoles Européennes European Schools           Europäische Schulen

Bulletin No 1343 

Meeting of the Staff Committee, 10. September, Brussels (continued from BI 1342)

• Meeting with the Secretary General (SG) and the Deputy Secretary General(DSG) (cont.)

• School Management System ( The ES Odyssey with the aptly named odyssee… ) A commercial product (My School) is  now being adapted to meet the needs of the ES. New COBEE has been tested and goes into production in all schools in 2013 in three phases.
• German L1, lower marks from second corrector. The SG “ in all subjects in all schools the second examiner gives lower marks than the first on average…”. But the differences in German L1 are very significant and the OSGES will study the question.
• Budget driven pedagogical reform.  SG:  schools can have exceptions, these are then to be approved by the Admin Boards. .  The WG  “Organisation of secondary studies”  meets for the first time on 24 September; issue of failure rates will play a role in considering the reform. School leaving certificate (e.g.  language skills of “failures”). Most expensive lessons are religion. The OSGES  wants to map which are the most expensive subjects. DSG: look at where there are small teaching groups since these are the most expensive; the  issue is not big/small school but big/small section; may need to study the issue of creating sections. Issue of class size and L2 skills in debate of failures: DSG studying failure and will present a report to the JTC in Feb.  SG: most failures in 4/5 include failures in the 3 sciences. Middle management: less ambitious proposals for JTC in Feb; watching the pilot project in Munich closely.
• Statute CdC:  For the OSGES this is the number one priority and it is hoped, with the agreement of the Belgian presidency, to put it to the BoG for approval in December for implementation from Sept 2013. Very few changes to the proposal made to the BoG in April, and the proposed salary steps have been retained despite opposition from the Commission.

• Approval of Bulletins 1834 – 1840. Approved, but see version 2 of BI 1835 with the current list of CdP representatives in the various working groups.
• Designation of CdP representatives in the various working groups c.f. BI 1835 (v2)
• Election of deputy secretary of the CdP : M Francis CHARUEL (Lux II)
• Report from the “Languages WG”. This will now become the “Organisation of Secondary Courses”. The final report of the Languages group will pass to the Inspectors and then the JTC.

• Other Business

• Lack of cleaning in the Primary buildings of Bx II by the first day of the new school year: Quite simply these were not cleaned and were found with the stains, debri, food remains etc. from the end of the last school year; waste was not emptied, a layer of dust lay over everything. Could budgetary considerations be the reason for this? The matter will be raised in the next Admin Board meeting…
• Increase in numbers of unfilled posts and the appeal by some Luxembourg teachers (coordinated by a Munich firm of lawyers). Many new colleagues feel discriminated against and some cannot live on the salary the receive (30-40% less than previously!).
• Criteria for promotion: many colleagues are surprised at the sometimes very liberal interpretation of the new article 61 b)
• Bx I colleagues having to commute between Uccle and the temporary premises in Berkendael. Colleagues can spend up to 200 minutes per week but there is no compensation for this at present. A proposal on supervision duties has been made and a meeting is scheduled for 11 September between management and staff reps.
• Caisse de Maladie: problems with documents “disappearing” and slowly “reappearing”… Apparently arbitrary (and unexpected) decisions on the cover for spouse and family members. Colleagues are encouraged to contact their staff rep in cases of difficulty.

• Dates of forthcoming meetings: 

• Wednesday 10 October, preparation for the JTC
• Monday 3 December, preparation for the BoG

End

BOLETÍN 1842: New Schools, "New Salary" Complains, Salary Increases, New evaluation system, BAC..

PUBLISHED SINCE 1964

Comité du Personnel Staff Committee Personalrat

Ecoles Européennes European Schools           Europäische Schulen

Bulletin No 1842

Meeting of the Staff Committee, 10. September, Brussels

Chair: Martine Bottin (Bx III)

Introduction: the purpose of this meeting at the start of the school year is twofold: to introduce new staff representatives (7 this year) to the work of the Staff Committee, and to meet with the Secretary General (Mr K Kivinen) of the European Schools and his deputy (Mr G Marcheggiano) at the beginning of the year .

• Adoption of the Agenda: Adopted with some additions under Other Business
• The presidency recalls the role of the staff representative at the school level and the role of the Staff Committee within the ES system. She reminds representatives of the existence of the Internal Rules for the Staff Committee (copies of both the English and French versions  to be distributed to all reps electronically by the secretary). She also reminds reps that copies of the Staff Regulations and other documents, together with all decisions by the Board of Governors since 1998 can be found on the website of the Schools ( www.eursc.eu )
• Meeting with the Secretary General (SG) and the Deputy Secretary General (DSG).

• The SG welcomes all new members of the committee. There was a successful start to year with the Laeken and Mamer schools opening, as well as a Type II school in the Hague and  a Type III school in Bad Vilbel;  In September  2013 there will be two further type II schools in Copenhagen and Tallinn.  Discussions on Bx V, VI and VII are to be initiated with the Belgian presidency; Laeken will be full in 2016 and  Berkendael one year later. Thought is being given to these new schools only being primary and nursery to feed  the secondary in the existing  Bx I, II, III, IV schools.
• No clear data on unfilled posts yet (the situation is not yet clear for Italy, Belgian, Germany). In reply to a question the SG confirms that the cut in salary play a role in recruiting problems, but there are also other reasons… 
• The Complaints Board decided in favour of two colleagues in Kalrsruhe who appealed against the new salaries on the basis that they were wrongly informed by the school and inspector and they will receive the old salary for one year; other appeals are like to be unsuccessful since colleagues were correctly informed at the time of appointment. The  CdP comments on the danger of more and more colleagues only staying 2 years, and raises the question of the nursery/primary salary differences.
• Salary increases (from 1.7.2011): The proposed increase of 1.7% was blocked by the Council and the Parliament, and the Commission has taken action before the ECJ. A decision by the Court is expected in September or October. ECJ could invoke “crisis clause” to block the proposed increase. The budget for 2012 can cope with a salary increase but it will be touch and go. Note that €2M has been cut from the draft budget for 2013 (an amount which corresponds to salary increase….)
• There are at present no British inspectors and no German secondary inspector, but it is hoped that both Germany and the UK will nominate replacements very soon.
• Pre-pilot inter-disciplinary project (Bac). There was a  WG meeting in July;  a proposal was made and this will go to the directors meeting on 12 Sept. Last year’s pre-pilot did not have enough participants to evaluate. In a new pilot phase all schools should be involved with each involving at least one class from each language section.  CdP: no CdP representation in WG, no real feedback, problems with resources, time for both teachers and students… SG:  CdP will be represented in WG; there is a possibility of incorporation in the  review of secondary education with remuneration as for teaching. DSG: the project  not lost time, a deficit and must be included in our system…
• Linked to the project is a new evaluation system. Primary evaluation will also be revised.  Only Denmark, Sweden and Slovakia SLOV apply ECTS at present. The  Inspectors “shot it down” because of moderation and application of Gauss curve. Five passing grades and two failing ones – thisl will pass by the inspectors and the WG and a proposal will be put before the JTC, start in first and second years. No timetable for implementation .Aware of the need for absolute clarity of meaning of grades for universities.
• Revision of primary report: new group with no CdP representation.  The SG states there is not yet officially a new WG, but there will be such a group and the CdP will be represented.
• New maths program and new Bac: the 2012 results were significantly below long term average. 30 resits, most of whom had “nothing to lose”. 24 turned up on 3^rd September.  Some colleagues declared they hadn’t completed syllabus and the new exam was  “a shock” for candidates…

Chemistry Bac: there were 44 complaints from candidates who felt the exam was too difficult and 6 of these are going through the Complaints Board. The results did not differ significantly from the long-term average.

• Dematerialisation: Epso distance marking. A pilot phase is foreseen in some schools, but not yet for the BAC. The time available is sufficient for introduction for BAC marking in 2014, but the SG “ would prefer to go back to the BoG and ask for more time if there are problems.” The system is very secure (unless an Espo technician has direct or indirect contact with the ES...)  
• TI-Nspire in subjects other than maths…. “Scientific Subjects” includes Eco and Geo.

Continued in BI 1843

BOLETÍN 1841: INTRODUCTION FOR NEW CPDs

Published since 1964

COMITE DU PERSONNEL STAFF COMMITTEE PERSONALRAT

ECOLES EUROPEENNES EUROPEAN SCHOOLS EUROPÄISCHE SCHULEN

Bulletin No 1841

Introduction for new colleagues

The European Schools are an intergovernmental organisation, regulated by a treaty known as the Convention.  Under the terms of this treaty, decisions are taken by the Board of Governors (BoG) made up of representatives of the 27 Member States, a representative of the European Commission, a representative of the European Patent Office, a representative of the staff and a parents’ representative. Parents and staff have voting rights on pedagogical issues without financial consequences.

In November 2006 a major reform of the whole European School system was decided upon by the Council of Ministers in response to EU enlargement and an ever-increasing number of EU agencies in the various Member States. It was decided to “open up” the ES system and make the European Baccalaureate more widely available.  “European Schooling” will be available in 3 types of school:

Type 1 (the “classical” European Schools)

Type 2 (national schools with some category I pupils, usually at the site of a European agency such as in Parma) with the European Commission contributing to the budget of the schools. There are currently 7 Type 2 schools that have been accredited by the BoG (Parma, Dunshaughlin, Strasbourg, Helsinki, Manosque, Heraklion, the Hague) with two further schools at present applying for accreditation (Copenhagen, Tallinn), Pupils in Parma have sat the Baccalaureate every year since 2009.

Type 3 (national schools offering European Schooling but with no EU funding). The first type 3 is in Bad Vilbel in Germany (land of Hessen), which opened in September 2012.

In April 2009 the Board of Governors decided upon a fundamental reform of the governance of the European Schools, giving individual schools a degree of autonomy and delegating some decision taking powers to two Committees, these being:

The Joint Teaching Committee (JTC) This body has the power to decide pedagogical questions and will deliver an opinion on a list of others to the Budgetary Committee and/or the Board of Governors.

The Budgetary Committee (BC) decides budgetary questions within the framework of the overall budget approved by the BoG and will also decide pedagogical questions with financial implications, or express a decision for the BoG if a decision is not possible in the BC. On a variety of other issues it will express an opinion to the BoG.

A “Troika”, made up of the current, previous and next chairs of the BoG, was set up several years ago to expedite the work of the BoG and this body was retained after the reform. In 2012-2013 it is chaired by Belgium, which holds the rotating presidency of the Board of Governors.

At the school level greater autonomy was granted to the Administrative Boards and a School Advisory Council (SAC) for each school was set up. This body is made up of representatives of the various stakeholders in the school and, as the name suggests, has a purely advisory role with no power of decision. 

The Staff Committee (CdP) is represented in both the JTC (with the right to vote) and the BC (without a vote). It puts forward the views of the teaching staff, defends the interests of colleagues and keeps colleagues informed by means of this Information Bulletin, which has been published regularly since 1964.  Together with the Staff Committee for the Administrative and Ancillary Staff (AAS) it designates one its number to represent the staff at the BoG. Its members are also members of the Administrative Board of the school they represent and, following a decision by the Complaints Board reversing an earlier decision by the BoG, the teachers’ representatives have two votes on this body.

The organisation and running of the ES system is managed by the Office of the Secretary General (OSGEE) which is directed by the Secretary General (Mr Kari KIVINEN) and his deputy (Mr Giancarlo Marcheggiano). The Secretary General is assisted notably Mr Albert KUHN (responsible for the budget) Mr  J VILLATORO (Financial Controller) and Mr A BECKMANN (Human Resources).

The budget of the Schools comes from 3 different sources: the contribution of the Member States in the form of the national salaries of seconded teachers, school fees for category 2 and category 3 pupils, a subsidy from the European Commission.

The burning issues at the start of the new school year are the EU contribution to the budget of the schools and the reform of the Organisation of Secondary Studies

The situation is Brussels is much improved with the opening of the Laeken site in Setember 2012, but it is expected that this will be full by 2016 and the idea of a fifth school is already in the pipeline ( at at meeting with the CdP on 10 September the SG also floated the idea of a  6^th and 7^th school). The opening of the fourth school has done little to alleviate the overcrowding in the other existing schools….ourth school moves to its permanent premises in September 2012 and a fifth. The distribution of the language sections across the schools is a highly sensitive issue. The Central Enrolment Authority is charged with assigning places in the schools and the number of appeals against its decisions increases year by year. the enrolment policy in the Brussels school.

According to the Convention, the EU contribution to the budget of the schools is a balancing subsidy covering the difference between the approved budget and all other sources of revenue. In recent years the European Commission has announced the level of its contribution at the start of the budgetary process, which has lead to very difficult debates before a budget could finally be adopted. Prior to adopting the 2012 budget significant changes in the rules for creating courses were adopted by the BoG at the behest of the Commission. The impact of these decisions has now become apparent in the schools. The Commission’s contribution to the draft 2013 budget will increase by 5.5% and it is seeking further “rationalisation” in the organisation of religion and optional courses…

A report on the European Schools was presented to the European Parliament in 2011. One of its proposals was that all “non-fundamental” (?) subjects should be taught in one of the three working languages, the author suggesting that such a change would lead to “substantial economies”. This led the BoG to decide in April 2012 to set up a Working Group “Organisation of Studies in the Secondary Cycle” for the sake of rationalisation of studies, with particular reference to options. The first meeting of this WG will be held on 24 September. From the debate at the BoG it is clear that the Commission (and others) are looking for substantial economies…

The CdP will keep colleagues informed on progress and decisions taken on these and other issues by means of the Information Bulletins. Regular reading of these is strongly recommended!  

 Category I = children of EU officials employed by the EU agency

 The CAVADA report