Competent Bodies in Luxembourg
The Department for Vocational education of the Ministry of Education, Children and Youth (MENJE) is responsible for the implementation and coordination of VET on a central level. Employers and Employees are represented by five professional chambers. The chambers are among others responsible for the award of training authorisations to companies and the administration of apprenticeship contracts. The Guidance Service of the Agency for the Development of Employment (ADEM) is responsible for the recording of apprenticeship positions and for the placement of young people and adults into a contract with a training company.
The Luxembourgish VET system, leading to the officially recognised qualifications (vocational capacity certificate – CCP (EQF 2), vocational aptitude diploma – DAP (EQF 3), technician’s diploma – DT (EQF 4), is centralised and hence also organised on a national level. The administration of the IVET and CVET system lies within the responsibility of the Department for vocational training of the Ministry of Education, Children and Youth (MENJE). Its main tasks consist in the implementation and coordination of the IVET and CVET system as well as the organisation of a system for the recognition of formally, informally, and non-formally acquired competences (Validation des acquis de l’expérience, VAE). Via its National training centres (CNFPC), it also offers opportunities for learners, who did not find an apprenticeship position, to boost their soft skills and reintegrate the regular apprenticeship system. The administration of the education offer of public secondary schools lies within the responsibility of the Department of general and technical secondary education of the MENJE.
Employers and employees are represented in Luxembourg by five professional chambers (chambres professionnelles). The chambers are public institutions financed by the mandatory membership fees for companies and professional persons from the sectors they represent as well as by the services and the continuous training courses they provide. The professional chambers have the right to submit suggestions to the government which in return must analyse them and, as the case may be, forward them to the Parliament. The Government is also bound to ask the professional chambers for their advice about laws and decrees.
Furthermore, the professional chambers play an important role in supervising and administrating work-based learning. Thus, the chambers of employers and the Chamber of Employees are responsible for assigning training authorisation (droit de former) which is a prerequisite for companies to offer apprenticeship or internship positions. For courses that do not belong to any chamber of employers’ responsibility, (e.g. health professions), the MENJE represents the employers.
Besides, the professional chambers are also responsible for administrating the apprenticeship contracts of the apprentices belonging to their respective field of responsibility, i.e. they register and archive them and take care of changes, cancellations, or prolongations.
The offer of apprenticeship positions is being administered by the Agency for the development of employment (Agence pour le développement de l’emploi, ADEM) which is subordinated to the Ministry of Labour, Employment and the Social and Solidarity Economy (Ministère du travail, de l’emploi et de l’économie sociale et solidaire). The competent Department for professional orientation (Service d’orientation professionnelle) registers the offer of apprenticeship positions and is responsible for assigning them to apprenticeship candidates. Furthermore, it gathers data and creates statistics regarding the ratio between offer and demand of apprenticeship positions.