What for Sorts Control Curriculum Choice Freedom Pictures
School education in Austria begins at age six. Children must be six years old when they are admitted to primary school. A vast majority of the children go to nursery school, which we call Kindergarten, for two years before they go to school. This is definitely pre-school education with emphasis on play and social learning, but virtually no training in writing or reading.
State organised primary education
Primary education is
essentially state organised. Parental choice at this stage is extremely limited, the
normal procedure being that the child goes to the primary school (Volksschule) of the
village or part of town where they happen to live.
In our state funded primary schools you will find a great variety of teaching methods as the choice of methodology is open to the teacher. In our province there are 947 classes in 170 primary schools, some of which are currently organised according to methods developed by Freinet, Montessori, or based on Waldorf pedagogy or other alternative approaches. (For more detailed figures on primary schools in Austria click here.) The only problem is that in most cases the parents have got no real choice. It is a stroke of luck whether your child will be educated in one of those classes or in a conventional class. However, in many of the so-called normal or conventional classrooms exciting things take place. Within this framework it is for instance possible to use a progressive approach to initial reading and writing: Reading through writing, as developed by the Swiss teacher Jürgen Reichen, is a methodology adopted in some schools.
State schools are free in Austria. In addition to this, the Austrian government pays for 90% of the school books of all children up to 18, and it pays for transport from a pupil's home to the school.
Private primary schools (for detailed figures click here)
There is some choice, however, in so far as parents can decide to have their child educated in a private school, which is normally a school with an alternative pedagogical programme: one of the two alternative primary schools in Vorarlberg for instance is clearly Montessori based. In addition to that there is a Waldorf school in neighbouring Liechtenstein, which many pupils from Vorarlberg go to. Parents have to pay fees and put in some hours of work on top of it.
Apart from this, transport has to be organised individually (although the private school often helps) and sometimes you will find a greater concentration of disadvantaged pupils. This, however, is usually balanced by an enthusiastic group of teachers and co-operative parents.
Secondary education (click here for figures)
With secondary education the landscape gets more varied. It deals with children aged 10-14 and offers two types of schools which are quite different although they share one curriculum: grammar schools stand for achievement, and entrance is competitive; the majority of the children go to secondary schools; a certain percentage will go to special schools.
As pupils are crowding into grammar school now (with all the pressure on qualifications for the labour market), achievement ranks high, classrooms are most often full (up to 30 or even 36), the teaching often conventional. But whereas in our district a meagre 12 percent of the pupils go to grammar schools and, thereby, make them to elite schools, the situation is dramatically different in cities and especially in the capital where some 60 percent of the pupils attend a grammar school. There secondary schools have shrunk and are left with children from a socially poor background, or children from immigrants and refugees.
In secondary school pupils are streamed according to ability in German, English, and maths, but educated together in all other subjects. Many secondary schools have a special programme emphasising sports, music, or environmental issues. In rural areas these schools usually have a good standard of tuition and are close to the pupils' homes. Streaming has its drawbacks, however, as even here there is considerable pressure on pupils to meet the demands of streams one or two. If you leave school with grades in stream three, job prospects are grim.
In the second phase, starting at 14, there is plenty of choice. The more practical-minded go to the Polytechnic School, which lasts only one year and concludes their compulsory schooling as well as it aims at preparing them for the world of work.
Most of them will take up an apprenticeship and continue at a vocational school one day a week for another three years. Others will get jobs straight away.
The most academic students continue grammar school or change to one for another four years before they take their A-levels there, which qualifies them for university. (Entrance to university is not competitive in Austria.). Students who have a certain job in mind, go to vocational schools, which offer special training in subjects related to economics and commerce, tourism and management, or technology. They can do A-levels as well.
For detailed figures of student distribution click here
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What for Sorts Control Curriculum Choice Freedom Pictures