The Ministry of Education introduces MATHI

Acting Minister Claude Meisch met with more than 500 teachers to demonstrate a new method of teaching mathematics. This is particularly important in view of Luxembourg's multilingualism, and it is precisely this problem that the MATHI materials are designed to address.

In developing the new system, the results of students in previous years were taken into account. They also helped identify the growing achievement gap between students who speak different languages. Researchers also interviewed 300 children, about 100 teachers, and 60 other education experts.

The result is an educational product aimed at closing the achievement gap for children who do not speak Luxembourgish or German at home. As of the new school year, the manuals that will be issued in Cycle 1 will now be written in German and French, and teachers will translate some important terms into other languages, such as English or Portuguese.

Another important innovation will be that a student's effort and attempts to solve an example or problem will be valued as much as the correct result. This should motivate children to put more effort into their studies instead of giving up after many failures.