In Austria, schools are closed for fourteen weeks a year, but parents are usually only entitled to five weeks of vacation. For many parents, this means that they have a “feud” with the holiday organization, ÖGB Vice President Korinna Schumann criticized on Friday. According to a far-sighted study by the Chamber of Labor (AK), a quarter of parents use the home office to guarantee childcare during the summer holidays. Schumann calls for a summer care summit.
According to the special survey for the school costs survey (1,021 parents of six to 19-year-olds interviewed, fluctuation of 2.4 percentage points), 81 percent had already planned the entire holiday in mid-June. Four in ten respondents had problems, especially single parents and parents of children with disabilities.
Many brothers and sisters also help with care
On average, most of the care (six weeks) is provided by family and friends; the children spend a week in holiday care, a week in camps and on average a week unsupervised at home, although this mainly has consequences. older students. According to 17 percent of respondents, they also care for younger brothers and sisters themselves.
According to AK education expert Elke Larcher, parents in the survey stated that there was a two-week ‘care gap’ and that this required additional, experiential, cost-effective offerings. According to the research, childcare offers in the summer cost an average of 415 euros per child.
Going on holiday together is often organizationally impossible
For parents, the gap between the duration of the holiday and their own holiday means that they use their holiday rights, overtime and compensatory hours mainly in the summer, use (more) home offices for care (Larcher: “a remnant of Covid”), but also reduce or not reduce working hours . Being able to work full-time. Parents often cannot go on holiday together because they have to divide their holidays so that care is guaranteed, Schumann criticized.
The government cannot pretend that this is an individual problem, the ÖGB vice president emphasized, calling for a summer healthcare summit with federal, state and local governments this fall so that the problems can be resolved by next summer. From their point of view, more money and staff would be needed for the municipalities, which are usually responsible for provision, and access to finance would be easier, especially for children with disabilities or children of single parents – “so that all children feel nice holiday”. She also called for a sixth week of holiday and a guarantee that parents of school-age children can take three weeks off in a row.
However, for Schumann, a debate about shorter summer holidays is not necessary. The time off from school is needed for relaxation, she emphasized. Larcher also referred to research showing that the new experiences children and young people can have during this time outside of school can bring about tremendous skills development – where appropriate, there are affordable experiential education options available to them.
Source: Krone

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