Listening comprehension scores in Luxembourgish and German by home language and socioeconomic status; Credit: Lenz & Schiltz, 2025

On Thursday 13 November 2025, the European Commission published the 2025 Education and Training Monitor, which highlights progress in Luxembourg’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education pathways.

The general theme of this year’s edition is STEM education. For the European Union (EU) as a whole, the report notes that member states have made progress, but enrolment in STEM remains low. In 2023, only 36.3% of upper-secondary vocational education and training students and 26.9% of higher-education students were enrolled in STEM fields. Female students remain under-represented.

Key aspects of the report for Luxembourg, as highlighted by the Representation of the European Commission in Luxembourg, include:

  • the provision of early childhood education and care services has been greatly improved, both in terms of access and quality;
  • a new early-detection system for special educational needs, adapted to Luxembourg’s multilingual context, was introduced in 2025. Luxembourg is addressing the high diversity of its school population by diversifying its educational offer: preliminary results from the pilot project on learning to read and write in French, as well as from public European schools, are positive;
  • students’ digital skills have improved, but performance gaps between them remain significant depending on their parents’ professional status;
  • vocational education and training (VET) is attractive for students and leads to good employment prospects. However, the report also shows that enrolment in STEM fields in medium level VET, which stood at 27.7% in 2023, is well below the EU average (36.3%) and the proposed EU2030 target (45%);
  • the share of higher-education graduates in Luxembourg is among the highest in the EU, and the University of Luxembourg is very attractive to international students. Participation in higher-education STEM programmes is close to the EU average but low among female students;
  • participation in adult education is above the EU average, but it could be improved for older workers and low-skilled individuals.

More specifically, the report shows that, in 2023, the share of Luxembourg tertiary students enrolled in STEM subjects was 27.4% (EU average: 26.9%) - below the proposed EU 2030 target of 32%. At 31.6%, the share of female students is below the EU average (32.2%) and the proposed EU target of 40%.

The full report for Luxembourg is available online (in English and French) at https://op.europa.eu/webpub/eac/education-and-training-monitor/en/country-reports/luxembourg.html

EO