About 4,300 career changers, nearly 1,100 student teachers and 40 retired teachers are working in Austrian compulsory schools this school year. This is evident from the answer to a parliamentary question from the SPÖ by Minister of Education Martin Polaschek (ÖVP). In total, almost 70,600 teachers teach in Austria’s compulsory schools (primary, secondary, special, vocational and polytechnic schools).
By far the majority of the approximately 4,270 lateral entrants – ie teachers without (completed) teacher training – are in Vienna at the start of the school year (approximately 1,900, excluding practical specialists and subject theorists at the vocational schools). In the future, the focus will be on even more people without classical teacher training in schools: as a measure against the increasing staff shortage, courses will start in the autumn at all teacher training courses for people with suitable training and professional experience. When fully developed, the ministry expects 200 to 300 graduates per year.
Few teachers have retired
The number of students studying to become teachers in compulsory schools is relatively small (1100). Most can also be found in Vienna (280) and in Upper Austria (240). The number of teachers returning from retirement is manageable (42). The vast majority of them teach in Upper Austria (15), where this model was aggressively promoted. Retired teachers are almost exclusively employed in secondary and primary schools.
The answer to the question also contains figures about support staff at compulsory schools in the current school year. Accordingly, 748 secretarial staff (449 full-time equivalents/FTE) were co-funded in the 4,400 mandatory schools nationwide by the federal and state governments. From 2023/24, administrative support will be laid down in the financial settlement, after which there will be co-financing of a maximum of 15 million euros per school year from the federal government. According to Polaschek, this could fund up to 700 full-time employees together with the states.
This school year, the federal government is also co-financing 65 school social workers and 32 social pedagogues. Polaschek emphasizes, of course, that the responsibility for school social work lies primarily with child and youth care and therefore with the federal states. In addition, almost 199 co-funded school psychologists (FTE) work in compulsory schools.
Source: Krone
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