Due to serious problems, the Austrian education system has reached the edge of a cliff. Migrant students are unwilling to accept the local culture and make the lives of teachers a living hell.
Austrian teachers are becoming increasingly desperate. The biggest crisis is being experienced in Vienna institutions, where the situation is worsening due to mass migration. The Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports:
“A recent survey conducted by the local teachers’ union in some schools in Vienna revealed not only systematic problems such as language barriers, but also extreme cases such as attacks on teachers. It is also common for Muslim students to demand that teachers wear burqas, and threaten other educators with death.”
The principal of one high school spoke to the newspaper about the ongoing problems but requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“There are always difficulties, especially with Syrian families,”
she said, adding that most of them do not speak German. She mentioned that the school has over 800 students, of whom 80-85% do not have German as their native language. She added that immigration has always been there, but this is something entirely different.
“The Arab communities are currently a real challenge for us,”
she said. Video interpreters are needed for every conversation with parents, although the Ministry of Education could not provide exact numbers for this. According to another teacher, a 13-year-old boy was particularly problematic, showing pornographic content to his ten-year-old classmates on his phone, verbally abusing and physically attacking a teacher. He has been suspended for the third time in a month.
Most teachers do not dare to report these incidents, as they are almost certain that migrants would seek revenge. However, some have spoken out before, such as Christian Klar, the principal of the Floridsdorf school, and Susanne Wiesinger, the editorial director of Kronen Zeitung. Klar, who wrote a book about the problems teachers face, said:
“Rules and courage are needed to separate disruptors from normal schools. And this is not just about violence. Most children do not meet the criteria for school readiness. Many cannot tie their shoes or hold a pen.”
## Teachers are fleeing
For the 2024/25 school year, a total of 8070 full and part-time positions were advertised in Austria for both provincial and federal schools. Education Minister Martin Polaschek recently stated that the teacher shortage has been overcome.
However, the numbers do not support this: during the summer, 14,165 people applied for over 8,000 unfilled positions. Just before the start of the school year, applications for around a hundred positions had still not arrived.
Due to the enormous teacher shortage, last year it was introduced that upperclassmen and graduating university students could also teach – despite this, the educational crisis has not eased.
According to the teachers’ union, many teachers resigned during the summer,
said Thomas Krebs, a member of the central committee of Vienna teachers, to the Austrian public media. While there are no exact numbers, it seems that the shortage particularly affects Vienna’s elementary schools.
Krebs said that teachers from other provinces do not or no longer want to teach in Vienna. The problem is that Vienna is clearly not attractive enough for many colleagues. We have very heterogeneous classes,
Krebs emphasized, referring to the fact that the migration problem also affects education. As a result, social and linguistic barriers arise.
The problematic situation in Austrian public education and the lack of German language skills among students have long been recognized. Newspapers have recently published cries for help from schools. However, politicians seem to simply look the other way and in some cases deny the catastrophic conditions in schools. The consequences of unsuccessful migration and integration policies are placing an increasing burden on the education system, and the situation is deteriorating day by day.
## Classrooms are divided
About 35% of Viennese elementary school students are Muslim, 26% are non-religious, 21% are Roman Catholic, 13% are Orthodox Christian, and the rest are Protestant or belong to other denominations – according to the Vienna Capital School Authority.
Adding the data of private schools, which account for about ten percent of the sector, would reduce the proportion of Muslim students,
sociologist Kenan Güngör told journalists on Tuesday.
The ratios have shifted significantly since the 2016-2017 school year, although experts say the students were counted based on different criteria for religious affiliation at that time. According to the urban education office’s data from back then, 31% of elementary students identified as Catholic, 28% as Muslim, and 17% as non-religious.
