City of Vienna Names Parental Work and Promotion for German Language as Key Points for Integration
Education is a key element for a successful integration in society. That is why the City of Vienna has presented recommendations regarding the challenges of Education in the city. The focus lies more on parental work and promotion of learning the German language.
The City of Vienna Will Lay its Focus More on Education / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons, Dimitry Anikin, CC0
During a press conference, the Vienna Integration Council in the frame of the W.I.R program presented its third statement on the challenges of the migration city of Vienna in the area of the education system. The crisis-ridden developments of recent years have presented the Viennese education system with unprecedented challenges, and the gap in education between children from families with and without a migration background has widened as a result, according to the Vienna Integration Council. Both the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war and the current shortage of teachers have led to the educational opportunities of students from poorly educated families being massively restricted.
The Vienna Integration Council, therefore, recommends that the city systematically involve parents from kindergarten onwards utilizing parental advice and interpreters as well as German and literacy courses directly at the locations. However, the school must remain primarily responsible for further educational success. "There must be no outsourcing of educational success to the family because that would overwhelm educationally disadvantaged families even more and the existing social inequality would be exacerbated," said Kenan Güngör, Expert of Diversity and Integration at the City of Vienna. In addition, the range of all-day schools is to be further expanded, and comprehensive all-day care at Viennese compulsory schools must be a clear target.
“Promoting German at school is extremely important, but we have to use the appropriate measures to do so. In terms of school autonomy, schools should be able to decide for themselves which type of support is appropriate for their location and their students. What we are observing in Vienna is that all-day care is a central factor for further educational success, especially for children from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. That's why an average of 10 additional free all-day schools are created every year," says the City Councilor for Education.
"Because of the massive challenges facing Viennese schools compared to other federal states, we urgently need more resources from the federal government and an Austria-wide opportunity index," concludes Deputy Mayor Christoph Wiederkehr.