Particularly in Vienna, representatives of teachers from different backgrounds have recently warned about the threat of overloading the school system due to family reunifications from abroad. The “Krone” now has figures on how many children are currently in classes in Upper Austria during the year.
“We have reached the limit of capacity and in many schools we have exceeded it,” warned Paul Kimberger, the highest representative of compulsory education in Upper Austria, when he was recently asked in the “Krone” about the impact of family reunification of those entitled to asylum in the classrooms.
However, we are still far from the dimension we saw in Vienna, where representatives of teachers from various backgrounds recently raised the alarm about the threat of overload.
Reasons not stated upon registration
Figures from the Upper Austrian Education Directorate now also show this: 223 children from non-EU countries are newly enrolled in compulsory school this year, i.e. an average of 56 per month (out of a total of approximately 110,000 compulsory school pupils). Probably not all of these new students were brought to the country by relatives through family reunification, because when registering at school, no record is kept of why the children came to Upper Austria. They will also include families who have moved within Austria.
By comparison, in Vienna the media reported about 300 new schoolchildren every month as a result of family reunification.
More students with language problems
However, there are very precise figures about so-called exceptional students who, by definition, still have a “lack of knowledge of the language of instruction”.
Their numbers have increased in recent years in Upper Austria’s compulsory schools, from 6,216 in the 2020/21 school year (which was 5.7 percent of all compulsory pupils) to 8,288 in the last school year (which corresponds to 7.4 percent ).
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.
