The high school has been replaced – the track record of the high school is not as hoped

In the tenth anniversary publication of the Austrian Association for Research and Development in Education (ÖFEB), educational scientists examined how educational practice has changed as a result of the switch to the NMS. According to the article by Christoph Helm and Claudia Schreiner, there were only significant improvements in learning support in German lessons. It was only slightly lower in English, and in mathematics support actually fell in the first years after the introduction of the NMS, a comparison of data from the 2009 with 2018 education standards reviews showed.

Teachers at schools where there are many young people with a non-German mother tongue and from lower social classes tried to better respond to the needs of young people in all subjects and at every time of the survey.

Almost no more equal opportunities
The change has only partially led to more equal opportunities. It is true that the level of English proficiency has improved more among NMS students than among AHS students and even more among students with a migrant background or from educationally disadvantaged families. At the same time, according to an analysis by Mario Steiner, social differences at the transition from primary school have increased over the past ten years – and therefore during the founding of the NMS.

Students with a migrant background are even more likely to be found at the NMS and even less often at lower secondary schools than before. The chances of transferring to an AHS upper secondary school or BHS after an NMS have increased – especially for students with a migration background – but more and more students with an NMS background are leaving the school that leads to the Matura.

Changed assessment “not a success story”
According to the researchers, the changed assessment in the NMS is also “not a success story”: the overlapping assessment scale with de facto seven grades at the “basic” or “in-depth” level from the 3rd year onwards can “no longer be meaningfully combined with the legal quality definitions ”, according to the analysis by Ferdinand Eder and Georg Hans Neuweg.

This problem persists even after the conversion of the new middle school to a high school in 2020, which also included the reintroduction of permanent performance groups from the 2nd grade and the seven-part assessment at the “Standard” and “Standard AHS” levels. The assessment according to “in-depth level” or “standard AHS” is a condition for transferring to an AHS upper level or BHS after graduation without an admission process.

Performance standards have been massively lowered
What is also “very irritating” for the researchers is that “noticeably more” has to be achieved at secondary schools to achieve the same grade than at the actually equivalent “depth level” of the NMS. According to their findings, performance standards there – with the exception of ‘Very Good’ – have been massively and fundamentally lowered. Meanwhile, at the ‘basic level’, performance standards remained the same or were even tightened.

Former prestige project of the SPÖ minister
The new secondary school was a prestigious project of SPÖ Minister of Education Claudia Schmid, who actually wanted to take a step towards school communities. However, this failed because the ÖVP stuck to the lower level of the AHS. The NMS was initially introduced as a pilot project in 2008/2009 and was eventually implemented across the board in 2012/2013, following mixed evaluation results. The new system included team teaching in German, mathematics and English, with two teachers teaching together for six hours per week. From 2015, the extra hours can also be used for other supporting measures (promotion of gifted students, special or advanced courses, etc.). With the 2020/21 school year, the NMS was again renamed “high school” under turquoise blue.