WRITTEN QUESTION E-2536/99

by Heidi Hautala (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(4 January 2000)

Subject: Status of the teaching of Finnish in the EU institutions

At the Commission there are some 60 established teachers providing foreign-language teaching of the languages of the Member States to officials. Under a decision in principle by the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament, established teachers are to remain in their posts until they retire. Demand over and above the capacity of the established teachers is filled by invitations to tender.

At present Finnish is the only EU language without an established teacher, and this has given rise to concern among students, teachers and translation services. As a result of economies it was decided not to grant established status to the part-time Finnish teacher. Since then, again to save on costs, the Commission has decided to terminate the contract of the part-time Finnish teacher and to pay a local language school to provide Finnish teaching. This has caused a deterioration in the quality of the teaching and has placed Finnish in an unequal position in relation to the other languages.

Can the Commission explain why the teaching of Finnish was entrusted in the spring term 1999 to a language school which did not have on its payroll any qualified staff knowing Finnish at the date when the course began? On what basis was the language school successful in the competition for this contract? Does the Commission consider that the language school fulfilled the other conditions referred to in the notice of competition, such as a level of pay which reflected the demands of the work and was sufficient to motivate the teacher?

Does the Commission intend to consider altering its decision in principle and opening a post for a Finnish teacher with a view to improving the status of Finnish? In the absence of an established teacher, how does the Commission propose to ensure that the demand for Finnish courses is met? Can the Commission explain what costs were saved by employing an outside language school?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(16 February 2000)

The decision to outsource language courses that could not be covered by the permanent teaching staff of the Council and the Commission was made in 1996 at the end of the Trilogue (Parliament, Council, Commission) set up to examine how expenditure in this area could be rationalised.

In order to implement this decision, an interinstitutional call for tender was organised, giving rise to the conclusion of three contracts for the provision of language teaching services, at the beginning of 1999. These contracts were awarded after the usual tendering procedures. The choice of language schools was made unanimously by the representatives of the Parliament, Council, Commission, Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions. All the criteria in the call for tender were taken into consideration before the contracts were awarded.

In line with the decision of the Trilogue, the contracts of any non-permanent language teachers were not renewed once the institutions were in a position to outsource these services. All the teachers concerned and their representatives were kept fully informed of developments at all stages.

All courses that have been outsourced are monitored on a regular basis. All evaluations demonstrate a high level of satisfaction on the part of the participants and there is no indication that the quality of any of the outsourced courses is inferior to those provided by the permanent teaching staff. Regular meetings are held between the institutions and the language schools concerned to review performance.

At present, the Commission has no intention of suggesting a modification to the Trilogue arrangements, which would be necessary if it were to recruit a permanent Finnish-language teacher.

The cost of outsourcing language teaching is, on average, about 40 % of that of a permanent teacher.