Vienna is growing, mainly due to immigration. This also poses challenges for schools. Many students are not suitable for the lesson. Vienna also takes responsibility for other federal states. But that costs.
Between 2015 and 2022, there were approximately 350,000 asylum applications in Austria. The vast majority of them come from Syrians and Afghans. 166,000 people received a residence permit. The vast majority affected men (78 percent). This is evident from the asylum statistics of the Ministry of the Interior. Among the adults there are also many children – and they are often not really suitable for school lessons.
Poor German
Viennese City Councilor for Education Christoph Wiederkehr (Neos) is therefore sounding the alarm, because the number of “exceptional students” in Vienna increased by 27 percent during the past school year. By the way, ‘exceptional students’ are children who come to school with insufficient knowledge of German. According to a survey by the Vienna Education Directorate, there were exactly 13,531 primary school students in the last school year.
What is particularly worrying is that almost half of them were born not abroad, but in Austria. According to Wiederkehr, the decisive factors for the rapid development were the war in Ukraine and family reunifications.
300 additional children per month
The forecasts are also gloomy: the cohorts with the most asylum applications have often not yet been able to submit an application for family reunification. Nevertheless, the office of the Municipal Councilor for Education expects another 300 children per month in Vienna alone.
The greatest financial burden remains on Vienna
Vienna suffers by far here. Currently, 40 percent of all people receiving basic care live here. As of December 2023, only the federal capital still meets its housing quota. This means enormous financial costs for the city. “EcoAustria” has just calculated that the costs of asylum migration alone between 2015 and 2025 will amount to €5.7 billion in basic services across Austria and €4.4 billion in education. Most of it remains in Vienna. Councilor for Education Christoph Wiederkehr is now demanding compensation from the other states in the form of fines.
After an increase in anti-Semitism, demands are now being made on Islamic teachers
But there are also some problem areas in the classrooms. Violence, Islamists and more cases of anti-Semitism – experts from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the police recently outlined the main problems in schools. The rightly strict prohibition law would also ruin the future of many young people in an emergency. Enlightenment is therefore the motto of the hour.
The ÖVP also wants to hold Islamic religious teachers responsible. Municipal councilor Laura Sachslehner (ÖVP): “The situation requires consistent and rapid action, including in the field of Islamic religious education. Islamic religious teachers are the linchpin in terms of value orientation.”
“Education is flexible”
In Austria this is organised, managed and controlled by the Islamic religious community. “Because the topic is currently very present in the discourse, it is becoming more and more of a problem. The curriculum offers the opportunity for flexibility. Regular joint class visits by Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister and Imam Ramazan Demir are also scheduled. “Text passages about Judaism were developed together with Jewish religious representatives,” it says in response to a question from ‘Krone’.
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
