Thursday 15 June is the “Education Day” throughout Austria. More than 50 initiatives and organizations have called for demonstrations for “inclusive education and for better growth, learning and working conditions in the education sector”. Recreational educators also went on strike in Vienna.
Meetings are held on Thursday afternoons in Vienna, Innsbruck, Linz and Salzburg, and alternative formats such as educational picnics are also planned. They are organized by a network of more than 50 initiatives and organizations, such as trade unions, the kindergarten platform Educare and the Austrian Student Union. In Vienna, the demonstrations are intensified by recreational day school teachers, who are on strike that day because of a planned reform of the job profile. This means that the leisure part of about 35,000 children at 142 public primary schools will be cancelled.
The educators are against the new personnel category “auxiliary and recreation teachers”, which can also be used during the learning period and should be transferred to a different salary scheme. In the future, the Matura is also planned as an entry requirement, for which the program will be shortened from two to one semester.
“Outdated, underfunded system”
Teachers, in turn, demand more money for schools, support staff (for example in the psychosocial and administrative field), a training offensive and an inclusive school system. Austria’s growing teacher shortage is coming up against an outdated, underfunded and segregated education system, Hannes Grünbichler, president of the Independent Teachers’ Unions (ÖGLI-UG), said Monday. The staff can no longer sufficiently prepare the children and young people for future challenges.
For example, more and more students need extra lessons and the share of early school leavers is alarmingly high at 12 percent. The system must be reconsidered by politicians, for example, child and youth care must be connected to the schools. Co-chair Claudia Astner described that young people would injure themselves in the school toilet or express suicidal intentions – all without professional support on the ground. More support staff is needed, again separate training for teachers with special needs and supervision. Otherwise there is a risk of a “fire” in the education system.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
