Families in Austria have to take more private lessons for their schoolchildren than ever before. As shown by the ‘tutoring barometer’ presented by the Chamber of Labor (AK) on Tuesday, the tutoring rate was 30 percent, three percentage points more than last year.
Parents have to dig deeper into their pockets to get good grades: in school year 2022/23 they spent a total of 121.6 million euros on private lessons. A year earlier that was still 8.9 million euros less. Since then, however, prices for institutes and teachers have risen by an average of more than 18 percent. According to the AK, this amounted to an average of 720 euros per schoolchild.
Nearly one-third of students are tutored
In the last summer holiday or in the current school year, almost a third of all pupils received external tutoring, paid or not, eg in the form of free school counselling. In the AHS superstructure this is even 44 percent. A total of 167,000 children and young people, or 17 percent of all students, received paid tutoring this school year or in the summer before.
Mathematics remains the most important tutoring subject, followed by German and other languages. The AK calls for shelter for families with school-aged children. Households at risk of poverty and single parents in particular deserve support. Because they often cannot afford the hours. The result: 20 percent of students who do not receive paid tutoring really need it.
“Educational injustice is cemented”
According to the criticism of the AK, parents must finance a multimillion-dollar company with their income. For many families, this financial burden can no longer be overseen. “Educational success is a private matter in Austria, and it should not continue like this,” criticized the head of education in the AK, Ilkim Erdost. A school system based on home learning and parental support is outdated. Educational injustice is thus cemented.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
