In February, the Ministry of Education announced a participation process in which students would be involved in curricula development from the start for the first time. Until now, they could only comment if the curricula had already been developed. The first results of the project are now available, specifically on the curriculum for commercial schools. The youth report was handed over to Minister of Education Martin Polaschek (ÖVP) on Thursday.
It was developed by social enterprise YEP together with students aged 14 to 20 in workshops, focus groups and an online survey, according to a statement from the education department on Friday.
Polaschek: “Historic moment”
Young people, as experts in their world, must have a voice in creating curricula, Polaschek emphasized, calling it a “historic moment.” Many of the subject areas that young people in the study identified as essential for the HAK of the future have already been included in the curricula of primary school, secondary school and lower secondary school from this year onwards.
Students want varied teaching methods
Half of the students indicate that they would be particularly motivated if they were allowed to have a say in the learning material. One in two people also wanted motivated teaching staff and varied teaching methods, especially modular learning.
According to the report, financial education and connectedness to life are particularly relevant for students in all subjects, such as a focus on everyday language in English lessons or texts such as emails and application documents in German lessons.
Uniform performance assessment in the major subjects
In addition, the students want to focus more on current media topics in all subjects, so that they can better classify and understand them and also deal better with fake news. When assessing performance, they like to rely on presentations, projects, papers, smaller tests, and class participation. In addition, a uniform performance assessment in the main subjects should make the examination modalities understandable and transparent and guarantee a fair assessment.
A point was also asked that can be found in the School Time Act and therefore has little to do with the curricula: For 46 percent of young people, the start of lessons also plays a major role; they would like classes to start at 9:00 am.
Source: Krone
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