Wiener Landtag – Wiederkehr states: “There was no vacant class”

The Greens call it chaos, the ÖVP speaks of failure: in both cases this refers to the education sector. With all its problems, this was also the dominant topic in the Viennese state parliament on Wednesday.

Right from the start, Education councilor Christoph Wiederkehr had to clarify in a question-and-answer session whether he knowingly claimed to be false in the previous council. According to the ÖVP, Wiederkehr meant that all primary school classes had a class leader. According to the ÖVP, which refers to correspondence from the Education Directorate, twelve Viennese primary schools still do not have a class leader and are only supervised.

Responsibility lies with the federal government
But Wiederkehr continued, “When school started, there wasn’t a class that wasn’t occupied.” Only twelve classes – that’s about 0.3 percent – had only temporary class leaders at the start of school. The start of the school would have turned out well with a view to a “special” school year. This refers to the challenges posed by the teacher shortage. You can’t just “call up” the educators if they aren’t trained enough. The federal government is “solely” responsible for this.

incomplete organization
Another criticism of the ÖVP focused on its incomplete organization. As a result, potential teachers who would like to teach still wait weeks after school starts for an assignment, contract or salary.

The Greens also got involved. Mismanagement and lack of resources in the education department’s human resources department would only fuel the teacher shortage. In an urgent request, the Greens have therefore put a number of questions to Councilor Wiederkehr.